


The Changeling

by masterofesoterica



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Alternate Harry Potter and Cursed Child Universe, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Awkward Romance, Comfort No Hurt, Complicated Relationships, Crying, Death Eaters, Depression, F/M, Family Fluff, Female Harry Potter, Gen, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Spoilers, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, Magical Detectives, Mental Health Issues, Mystery, Not Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Compliant, Post-Canon, Severus Snape Lives, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2019-07-18 15:10:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 63,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16121102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masterofesoterica/pseuds/masterofesoterica
Summary: Seven years after the Final Battle, Snape has resigned as Hogwarts Headmaster, and Harry is a well-established Auror.A prophecy, poison and missing persons contrive to bring these two people with a complicated history together again.AU. Female Harry Potter. Severus Snape Lives.





	1. Departures

25th May 2005

 

**Hogwarts Commemorates 7 th Anniversary of Final Battle in Voldemort Wars**

**Special Report: Headmaster Severus Snape Resigns**

 

Rita Skeeter, Senior Correspondent

 

Headmaster Severus Snape, spy and double agent during the Voldemort Wars, and terror of Hogwarts students for the past twenty-four years, has announced his resignation. In his tenure as Professor of Potions, Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts, and then as Headmaster, Hogwarts has gone through a period of profound change—some would say turmoil and murder.

 

The height of Snape’s career was no doubt the last stand against Voldemort and his Death Eaters—a conflict in which Snape is said to have played a crucial and pivotal role. However, Snape has never been without his critics, some of whom has condemned in the strongest words his “cowardice and two-faced treachery” (for further accounts and commentary, see my recently-published biography _Snape: Scoundrel or Saint_ ). It was during the dark school year of 1997-1998 that Snape ascended to the role of Headmaster. Under the first year of his Headmastership, and presumably under the command of Voldemort himself, unknown horrors were perpetrated on Hogwarts students by confirmed Death Eaters and sadists, Amycus and Alecto Carrow.

 

Though many did not expect Snape to remain in the role of Headmaster following his unfortunate run-in with Voldemort’s snake familiar, Nagini, he recovered relatively quickly in the months following the Final Battle. It is known that several members of the Board of Governors voiced strong objections to Snape remaining in the post. Yet, after several weeks of deliberation, the Board agreed to reinstate Snape as Headmaster—a role which he has held until last night, when he announced that long-standing Deputy Headmistress Minerva McGonagall would be his successor.

 

I can imagine that many parents and interested members of the wizarding public who have never trusted one Severus Snape at the head of our most prestigious magical institution, may now heave a sigh of relief at this news.

 

Indeed, in Snape’s controversial time at the head of Hogwarts following the Final Battle, Snape laid waste to many of Hogwarts’s ancient, hallowed traditions. Under Snape’s tenure, though the Sorting remains, students are now no longer housed in their Houses. Students are also forced to participate in various inter-house clubs and societies. Snape has also instated several new subjects such as Healing and Magical Theory. It was also reported that Professor Binns, the venerated, ghostly Professor of Magical History, had been replaced by a live wizard.

 

Snape’s actions over the past few years have led some to wonder his true motivations in remaining Headmaster. Was he still working for Lord Voldemort (or in his memory) in order to instate Slytherin supremacy? Did he wish to desecrate the legacy of his predecessor, Albus Dumbledore, whose own history is shrouded in some secrecy (although I have done my utmost to expose the truth in the newly revised second edition of _The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore_ )?

 

Snape, known to have a hostile and secretive personality, has always refused to provide any public comment regarding his actions during the Voldemort Wars and his subsequent actions as Headmaster. The wizarding community remains, for the most part, in the dark about this hero-and-or-villain. Snape may wish to retreat into relative obscurity—but it is safe to say that his life will always be subject to our scrutiny.

 

_Next Week: In a special retrospective, Rita Skeeter speaks to Severus Snape’s former students about their memories of the man as an educator over the past twenty-four years._

 

* * *

 

 

June 2005

 

Summer bloomed across Hogwarts. The Forbidden Forest was rich and verdant, the Black Lake glimmering beneath the sun. If any battles had taken place here, there was no sign of it. And yet as the retiring Headmaster of Hogwarts looked out over the grounds, he could not forget that blood had been spilled here, and the mending was still being done.

 

“What’s going on inside your head, Severus?”

 

“Good morning, Minerva.”

 

“Just saying goodbye then?”

 

“That doesn’t quite seem right, does it?” Snape ran his hand over the window ledge, soothingly.

 

“You’ve done well, Severus. You’re always welcome here. It’s your home, and always will be—and no one would think otherwise.”

 

“Ah, Minerva. People think a lot of _shit_.”

 

That drew a laugh out of Minerva. Evidently, Snape had not forgotten about Rita Skeeter’s articles in the _The Daily Prophet_. Where _had_ the woman dug up the very worst of Snape’s students—one of whom Minerva was sure had been living in Siberia—she would never know.

 

“You know I—and the rest of the professors—stand by you in implementing all those changes. They were long overdue. Even I can admit that now.”

 

Minerva had been one of the most vocally oppositional to the changes Snape had wanted to make at first. But several years on, she was quite ready to admit that it was good to see students of all houses working together to rebuild Hogwarts. It was good to see friendships when previously there had been suspicion and enmity. Not all wounds were so easily healed—that was true—but young people had a capacity for understanding beyond her expectations. It was what the Founders would have wanted.

 

And Professor Binns _had been_ long overdue for retirement.

 

Snape stared out at the Hogwarts grounds from the window. The room had a commanding view of all the grounds. Snape and Minerva both watched as Hagrid took the young thestrals through their paces in the clearing just outside of the Forbidden Forest.

 

The years after the war had done her old colleague a lot of good. He was less sallow and less painfully skinny. Occasionally, Minerva still thought of him as the awkward boy she had taught, and then the angry adolescent she had accepted as a fellow teacher—a little reluctantly at first. But now, he looked much more his age, and still young by wizarding standards.

 

“Professor,” he said, raising an eyebrow, “stop assessing me.”

 

“I would never dream of it, Severus!” Minerva allowed a small smile. “You needn’t be worried. You can be sure that Hogwarts will continue changing and growing. I will make certain of it. I have not always done everything right. But you know me, Severus. Enjoy your retirement.”

 

At that, Snape scoffed. “Retirement indeed.”

 

“Perhaps I have not said this enough, Severus, but you _have_ done so much. It’s time that you had some time to yourself.”

 

Snape ducked his head, and Minerva wondered if he was hiding a blush. “Teaching was never my calling. I best go.”

 

At the foot of the staircase leading up to the Headmaster’s office, Snape gave firm instructions to the gargoyle that he was to obey Minerva, the new guardian of Hogwarts. Then he sliced open his hand and pressed his blood into the stone. Minerva did the same. A ritual handing over of the keys.

 

Snape smiled, something genuine and fragile and fleeting lighting up his face. “Goodbye, Headmistress.”

 

He walked down the seven flights of stairs to the front doors, and walked out into the sun. Minerva thought it rather a shame that more people were not there to witness the dramatics.

 

* * *

 

 

August 2005

 

“This is it then?”

 

“Oh Harry. I still love you, you know, just...”

 

“I know… Just not _like that_ anymore. I know. It’s going to be very quiet here without you.”

 

“Harry—we’ll still be friends. We’re family—always. You’re practically a Weasley! I hope I won’t be unwelcome here?”

 

“What? No, of course not, Ginny, never! I promise we’ll have a party once the Holyhead Harpies come top of the league again this season. And I’ll be at the Burrow for Christmas like always.”

 

Ginny smiled, brown eyes crinkling at the corners. But there was something tremulous in the curve of her mouth, as though a tiny pinprick might deflate her. Harry could not help but feel a pang of loss. It felt like something bigger was coming to an end.

 

They hadn’t been spending much time together for some months—since Ginny was travelling and training with the team so much, and Harry had been promoted to a Senior Auror in the Auror Office. Their breakup had felt inevitable for months, though she hadn’t wanted to admit it to herself. Harry had always been _clingy_ —that was the word that Ginny used when they argued, with more regret than anger.

 

And now, Ginny was leaning forward to hug her, kissing Harry softly. “I’ll send for the rest of my things once I find a flat.”

 

“Well, uh, I guess that’s it then… Hope you have a good time in Belgium…”

 

“Bye, Harry. Take care of yourself, okay? Promise me you will.”

 

Harry nodded, and then Ginny was pulling open the door of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place and walking into the London streets. The sun brought out golden threads in Ginny’s red hair, and illuminated the smatter of freckles on the curve of her shoulder. Harry remembered how fierce Ginny always looked, each time she stalked off a Quidditch pitch, victorious, her broom slung in one hand and her other hand reaching for Harry.

 

There was no such swagger as Ginny walked away. A sob caught in Harry’s throat.

 

Harry resisted the desire to drink half a bottle of firewhisky and instead, pulled on her plain black robes and dropped by her offices in the Ministry. The Auror Office always needed another set of eyes and another pair of hands. She did _not_ think about what she would do with that picture of her and Ginny that sat on her desk.

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you want another drink, Harry?” Hermione was looking at her across the table. She shook her head at Hermione whilst Ron cleared the table.

 

Hermione had caught Harry as she was leaving the office, and when she saw the wan look in Harry’s eyes, very firmly informed Harry that she would be coming for dinner at the flat she shared with Ron in London. Hermione did always look out for her. To have gone home to an empty Grimmauld Place tonight would’ve been unthinkable.

 

Ron had ended up cooking the three of them a simple stir-fry and passed out bottles of beer to wash dinner down. Harry hadn’t been too keen on talking as they were eating. Hermione’s look of subdued sympathy throughout the whole night was rather difficult to ignore.

 

Ron tried to break the silence, uncapping a second bottle of beer. “How was the work at the Auror Office today?”

 

“Not too bad,” Harry murmured, “Low-level stuff, mostly.”

 

“Not the same without me, huh?” Ron said, rather half-heartedly.

 

“Yeah, not the same.”

 

“What about Demelza, Harry? Is she settling in well?”

 

“Yeah, really well. Good of you to suggest her for the job. She said a few weeks ago that she might consider going into the training programme herself in a couple years. That’s if Proudfoot will spare her.”

 

“Oh good,” Hermione said encouragingly.

 

The lapsed into silence once again, before Ron said, a little clumsily, “So, uh, Ginny left for the training camp this morning?”

 

Hermione kicked Ron not too gently under the table. He let out a silent yelp and turned his gaze guiltily away.

 

“We decided to—uh—break it off.” Harry knew the breakup could not be hidden from Hermione, Ron, and the other Weasleys, but saying it aloud made it all the more final.

 

“Oh Harry,” Hermione said, throwing an arm around her best friend, “I’m so sorry.”

 

“You knew it was coming though, didn’t you? Everyone could see it.”

 

“Oh no, Harry, don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault.”

 

Ron nodded emphatically. “These things happen, you know. Ginny’s my sister… But she can be a right git.”

 

“Well… All relationships… They go through rough patches, don’t they?” Hermione’s hand curled protectively around Harry’s shoulder, even as her voice took on a wistful tone. “Ron and I… We’ve had our own differences.”

 

“It’s not her, Ron. I dunno. And it’s not just temporary, Hermione. It was just us. It was working and then it just wasn’t. It’s been a long time since Hogwarts. We’ve all _changed_. There’s no use blaming it on anyone.” Harry sighed. “I’ll be okay with it. I’ll just need some time. It’s just that… The last eight years of my life…”

 

“Well we’re both here for you. If you want to talk? Or if you need a buffer from—uh, from _Molly_ or anyone else… Maybe you’d like to stay here tonight?”

 

“Hermione’s got me turned onto a rather good new _telly-vision show_.” Ron glanced at Harry, wordlessly seeking affirmation of his muggle vocabulary. Harry nodded with a small smile. “It’s called _Healer Hoo_.”

 

“It’s _Doctor Who_ , Ron,” Hermione laughed.

 

Ron winked at Harry slyly. “We can watch it together.”

 

“Yes. I’d like that.”

 

* * *

 

 

The days cooled towards the end of Summer. London heat retreated with the advance of autumn. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement in general was still dealing closely with their muggle government counterparts, helping to restore things to normal where they could do so, after the events in July.

 

Shacklebolt and his close advisors were having trouble deciding the extent to which the wizarding community could—and should—take part in muggle geopolitics. Meanwhile, the backlog of cases still had to be seen to by the Auror Office. Harry found herself staying later than usual at the Ministry, taking almost all her meals at her desk.

 

It was a Friday—which meant that tomorrow she would spend the whole day at Grimmauld Place by herself, fighting the heaviness in her limbs and struggling to climb out of bed. Kreacher would bring her breakfast if she asked, but she hated to make the old elf do anything for her. And Hermione would be busy with the Minister. Ron would be at the shop with George, Saturday being Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes busiest day. Perhaps Luna might want to meet up—it had been months since she had seen Luna—if she was in the country, maybe…

 

“Harry?”

 

Harry was thrown out of her reverie; she hastily replaced her quill in the inkpot. “What is it Demelza?”

 

“I have a file here for you.”

 

“Oh good, you can take this one back to Proudfoot. I’ve finished the paperwork for the that case of the cursed teacups.”

 

“Sure, will do Harry. But… This file isn’t from Proudfoot.”

 

“No?”

 

“It’s a little, well… Do you remember Sue Li from your year at Hogwarts?”

 

“Yeah…” Harry had vague recollections of a serious, dark-haired Ravenclaw. “She’s working in the Department of Mysteries now, isn’t she?”

 

Demelza nodded. “She wanted me to give you this; I haven’t read it. Sue was insistent that it was for your eyes only.”

 

Harry took the thin file hesitantly. When her hands touched the file, she felt the warm sensation of a secrecy charm breaking. Sue must have been pretty serious about keying it to her to put such an enchantment on the file. “Thanks, Demelza. You’ve been such a help on all the recent cases.”

 

Demelza smiled at her warmly, swept up the files from Harry’s desk, and bid a brisk farewell. Robins had really changed—no longer the rather shy Gryffindor who occasionally cried after a tough Quidditch practice—she was now calm and self-assured, and an eminently reliable colleague.

 

Only after sorting through seemingly endless paperwork, did Harry allow herself to consider the message.

 

Harry warded the doors and windows around her office before turning back to the thin file. There was likely only a single piece of parchment inside. Harry seemed to recall that Sue worked in the Hall of Prophecy—a rather odd choice for a logical Ravenclaw, perhaps. She ran her hand over the manila folder again, and again felt the warmth of the charm keyed to her own magical signature. A small shiver passed through her when the charm broke.

 

_Dear Harry,_

_Since I joined the Department of Mysteries, I have collated all prophecies related to Voldemort. All of them have remained dormant until yesterday._

_Yesterday, I became aware of a prophecy, newly awakened:_

??? to ???

 

The Augurey approaches…

Another song is sung,

Another child is chosen.

When the song is heard,

When the child has spoken,

Time comes once more…

The Dark Lord rises once more, to remake the world in his image.

_I know it has been many years, but I fear that this prophecy cannot be ignored. I fear that this prophecy may again be a rallying point for those who still believe in the cause of Voldemort. I have cause to believe this due to some, at present, minor but unusual occurrences which may be linked to this prophecy. At present, I have broken with protocol and hidden it in a place of my own devising, for fear it may fall to those wrong hands._

_I’m sorry I cannot provide you with the full details of the matter, but I impress upon you its seriousness._

_Please, you must investigate this matter to the best of your ability. As Keeper of the Hall of Prophecy, I am held in the utmost confidence. Please destroy this missive and do not directly correspond with me._

_Sue Li_

 

 

Harry set the letter down; blood pounded in her ears. Sue’s words were deeply unsettling. The prophecy sat heavily on her mind. Another prophecy… Another chosen one. And Voldemort. The thought of him… His shadow had never quite left Harry’s mind.

 

But what was there to do? A prophecy did not mean anything as far as she was concerned. There had been a prophecy but, whatever Voldemort thought, that prophecy had not dictated her choices. There was something unsettling about this message—something troubling—something that suggested that once the prophecy was seen or heard it would be on its way to becoming true…

 

What if it wasn’t true at all? Just because the orb in the Hall of Prophecy had lit up did not mean that it was going to come to pass. Perhaps nothing needed to be done… Perhaps Sue was being over-cautious, or over-eager. It was impossible to say… The nature of prophecy was uncertain. What if she investigated the matter and—as Voldemort had done before—came to sow the seeds of the prophecy’s fulfilment. But what if she did nothing? That thought scared her too. She could not stand aside and do nothing—if there was _any chance_ that some greater destruction could be avoided.

 

Harry glanced over at the pile of folders in one corner of the desk. Sabotaged cauldrons and illegal chimera parts smuggling rings now held little interest for her. She lit a small flame with her wand and watched Sue’s missive dissolve into dust. This dust she swept into a small tray and shoved it into the back of her desk drawer, if only as a reminder of her task. Harry may not know what to do, but she would not be alone in this—she needed never be alone when it came to Voldemort.

 

Harry packed her small bag and put the regulation wards over her desk.

 

“Demelza, tell Sue that I am taking her message seriously,” Harry whispered, then added in a normal voice, “I’ll be off now, don’t stay back too late Demelza.”

 

Demelza nodded discreetly, “Have a good night, Harry.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Harry! I got your note,” Hermione set her bag in the chair opposite Harry and tucked a piece of frizzy hair behind her ear, “What did you want to talk about?”

 

Both Harry and Hermione had learned some lessons from that initial debacle with the D.A. and now the two of them were wedged in a particularly noisy muggle pub that they had made their meeting place, whenever they needed a little privacy. It was conveniently located not far from the Ministry. A football match was being screened on the television. Harry had been swirling her glass of wine aimlessly whilst waiting for Hermione to show up, still too confused and uncertain to do much else.  

 

“Is it—is it Ginny? Did something happen? Harry, I’m so sorry… You two…”

 

“No, no. It’s fine.”  Harry thought of the previous night, when she had fallen asleep to the Wizarding Wireless Network commentary of Ginny’s game, and pushed it to the back of her mind. “It’s not that.”

 

Harry wished she could wipe away the look of sheer compassion in her best friend’s eyes. No doubt Hermione had guessed whatever thoughts had just passed through her mind. She did not want Hermione, the soother of the world’s hurts and wrongs right now. She needed Hermione, the ruthless logician.

 

“I think… There has been a new prophecy.”

 

“Prophecy?” Hermione’s brown eyes narrowed, “What do you mean, prophecy?”

 

Harry told her briefly about the message she had received, although she left out the who and how of the matter. Even in the low and harsh lighting of the pub, Hermione’s face turned ashen, her expression frozen.

 

“You’ve agreed to—look into this?”

 

“Yeah. It bothers me, you know. My informant says there were some _unusual things_ happening. But couldn’t say what exactly was happening. I thought—I thought maybe you would know something? You have a better understanding of the whole Ministry from your department.”

 

“It’s hard to say without any specifics. And you know we’ve been a little preoccupied with everything else… Can you remember anything particular that your informant told you?”

 

“No, I don’t think so. Well… Precautions have been taken so that the prophecy cannot easily fall into the hands of whoever might want to get a hold of it. People who might want to rally around the hope for the return of Voldemort. Apart from that—my informant just said how important it was to get to the bottom of things. Nothing else.” Harry rested her chin against her hand, biting at her bottom lip. “You _do_ think there is something in this?”

 

“Well… you _know_ how I feel about anything related to Divination.”

 

Harry smirked lightly. She could not forget how Hermione had stormed out of Trelawney’s stuffy classroom back in their third year.

 

“Nothing seems right about this. This message—keyed to you only, you said, and coming from someone you trust—doesn’t give us much to go on. Even if it is true, and then it is certainly worth investigating, there is very little to go on. Only the text of the prophecy itself. And you, of all people, would know how fickle prophecy tends to be.” Hermione frowned, “I will do what I can of course. I can do some research where I can. I can speak to the Unspeakables. Not sure how much help that will be…”

 

“There was another thing… Augurey—it mentioned something about that. There’s no way we can look into that?”

 

“I could look into Augurey breeding maybe. But it’s not a controlled creature; it’s readily available to be traded between private parties. And it probably has a metaphorical meaning anyway…” Hermione hummed in consternation, frowning slightly.

 

“It could be nothing. Purely metaphorical, of course. Acting on it or even knowing about it could make the prophecy come true. But well… I of all people, you said, Hermione. I of all people.”

 

“Harry—I didn’t mean it…”

 

“No, it’s okay.” Harry patted Hermione’s hand reassuringly. “I mean, it talks about a child. The prophecy. _Another child is chosen._ I can’t _let_ another child be chosen. Would they have to die? Would their parents? No. If there’s even a _chance_ … I can’t let another child be part of this.”

 

A troubled expression came over Hermione’s face, but Harry did not notice. A new fierceness had set in.

 

“I _have to_ do something. You have to tell me about anything suspicious going on. I’m afraid that the knowledge of the prophecy has already leaked out to those who would want to know about it… As much as I hate to admit it, Voldemort’s support went deep and we couldn’t clean up everything.” Harry worried at her lip again. “I’m going to go over the old Death Eater files again. That’s always a good place to start if we’ve missed anything. Please let me know—if anything, Hermione. Anything at all.”

 

With that, the blood was pounding through Harry’s head again—she felt ready to duel someone or…

 

“Hold on, Harry. Don’t let’s leap to conclusions. You don’t think this could be a… trap? Like…”

 

“Like Sirius, yeah. I thought about it.”

 

“I’m sorry, Harry. I just don’t want you to… I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

 

“I know, Hermione. But I can’t do nothing. If this is related to Voldemort… To me… Then I have to do something about it. At the very least I have to look into it. I need your help.”

 

“Of course—I will help you. Whatever I can do to help. But Harry… Are you—okay? You’re not… You’ve been a little withdrawn.” Hermione tugged at a lock of her hair, curling it around her finger over and over

 

“I’ll be fine. I’ll be okay. I just need to get to the bottom of this, okay?”

 

* * *

 

 

The Ministry was almost empty—the long halls echoed with her footsteps as Harry stepped into the elevator. Every grinding gear seemed like another note in an infernal sort of symphony as she ascended each level slowly.

 

All those years ago, that first time she had visited the Ministry… Had the elevator sounded so sinister? That first time, she confronted the might of the bureaucracy of the wizarding world, barely escaping with her freedom. And the second time…

 

Hermione had a point. Hermione had always had a point. She had told Harry that she had a ‘saving people thing’—and she had. Maybe Harry still did.

 

She was not going to her desk or to the Auror Office, but to the archives where the files from the last few decades were stored in floor to ceiling shelves. Lit only by Harry’s _Lumos_ , the room was entirely claustrophobic.

 

When she’d filed these names away, in the months and years after the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry had imagined that she would not see them again for a very long time. She had hoped fervently that she had seen the very last of all of them. Yaxley. Dolohov. Lestrange. Carrow. Now, as each name was illumined by wandlight, she felt a small jolt. Here was Fred’s laughing face as he fell, and the ghastly twisted stare of triumph on the face of his killer. And here was Bellatrix Lestrange, also laughing as she died, felled by Molly Weasley. And there was Yaxley, who they had hunted down in the months after Voldemort’s fall. His body had been so mangled following their duel—Harry and four other Aurors to one—that his sister had only been able to identify him by a birthmark.

 

Now, she shook with unnameable emotion as she pulled each of their files from the shelves and cast a _gemino_ charm on all of them. The files teetered precariously as she lifted them, each of them heavy with sheaves of parchment. Some of those sheets of parchment would have her own writing on them, or the hands of those she recognised. But there would also be lines and lines of ink by victims she had never before met, written by those who had suffered at the hands of these Death Eaters far more than she ever had, those who had dead mothers and sisters and brothers.

 

One more file caught her eye, and she had reached her hand out to pull it from the shelf before she was fully conscious of what she was doing. Snape. This one was thinner than the others. Harry knew that if she opened it, she would certainly see her own scrawling hand. She thought of those weeks spent outside her professor’s room in St. Mungo’s. Weeks pacing the halls because the Healers had not allowed any visitors inside the room itself. There had always been an Auror outside—whether for Snape’s benefit or the public’s, she did not know. More often than not, she had sat on the floor, writing out the account of Snape’s memories, evaluating each Pensieve recollection, wondering if he would be too angry with her if they were to become public. But then—perhaps he wouldn’t live—and wouldn’t be there to care anyway.

 

Before she could change her mind, she cast a _gemino_ on Snape’s file too. Snape _had_ lived of course. And rebuffed every attempt she had made to talk to him until she gave up altogether. How many times had she picked up a quill and… But that did not bear thinking about.

 

Harry cast a secrecy charm over the files, shrunk them down to pocket size, and made her exit.

 

The words of the strange new prophecy echoed in her head. _Another child is chosen. Another child is chosen._ The papers in her pocket felt heavier than an anvil.

 

 


	2. Nights

September 2005

 

_Yaxley, Corban – Deceased, killed whilst evading capture_

_Malfoy, Lucius – Two years in Azkaban, released_

_Lestrange, Bellatrix – Deceased_

_Lestrange, Rodolphus – Life in Azkaban_

_Lestrange, Rabastan – Deceased, after serving six years of a life sentence in Azkaban_

_Carrow, Amycus – Twenty-five years in Azkaban_

_Carrow, Alecto – Twenty-five years in Azkaban_

_Rowle, Thorfinn – Twenty years in Azkaban_

_Dolohov, Antonin – Life in Azkaban_

_Macnair, Walden – Twenty-five years in Azkaban_

_Rookwood, Augustus – Deceased, after serving two years of a life sentence in Azkaban_

 

Lucius Malfoy had received the lightest sentence of all the Death Eaters. He had been questioned intensively before his trial and had seemed entirely forthcoming. His evidence had been used by the Ministry to convict many of the other—more militant—Death Eaters. Harry thought, if nothing else, at least Lucius’s fear for his family, and his desire to protect Narcissa and Draco, had been genuine. He would certainly have the most ample opportunity… And she could not forget how he had chased them through the Ministry, that white-blonde hair wild about his face, and something vicious in his grimace. He had been under constant surveillance since he had been released from Azkaban, but…

 

Harry scrawled Malfoy’s name at the top of a piece of parchment.

 

These other names… Harry sifted through the pages, looking for anything that jumped out at her. All that she could focus on at all were the names of their victims. She ran a tired hand through her hair. Having spent the last few nights pouring over the files, they were as dull and terrible as she always remembered them to be.

 

Hermione had made good on her word and sent her the most recent reports from Azkaban regarding the prisoners held there. Harry had also pinned whatever she could dig up out of _The Daily Prophet_ into her file. The newspaper was still a load of rubbish, for the most part. She had also lifted out some of the more plausible sounding articles from _The Quibbler_. The magazine had improved dramatically after Luna had convinced Xenophilius to take on Dennis Creevey, first as a photographer, then as a sub-editor and writer.

 

_The Quibbler_ cutting about the secret conspiracy between the Dementors recently expelled from Azkaban and the wizarding band The Weird Sisters to bring added misery to the wizarding world seemed a little far-fetched, but Harry kept it in her file nonetheless. Who knew when such things might become relevant.

 

Yaxley and Rookwood, two of the most intelligent and powerful Death Eaters, who had joined Voldemort’s cause earliest, were now dead. The others all had extended or life sentences in Azkaban. Hermione’s reports from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement suggested that the prisoners did not pose much of a disciplinary problem without their wands, and that the guards had not observed any out of the ordinary behaviour. Just pages and pages recording meals taken, correspondence, and visitors, and illnesses.

 

Rabastan Lestrange was also dead, apparently. He had evaded capture for five months after the Battle of Hogwarts, moving from one hidey hole to another, but he had come quietly when he was found. The other Lestrange brother had been far less cooperative, fighting tooth and nail, and maiming two of the three Aurors who had been tasked with taking him in.

 

According to the notes, it was some form of Dragon Pox that had killed him. A reinfection of the disease that had first flared up in childhood that had ended with Rabastan Lestrange in an unresponsive coma.

 

Harry pressed the tips of her fingers to her eyes. “I wish something would _happen_ ,” she said to the caramel coloured walls of her study. Her beleaguered looking owl hooted once, rather mournfully. “Guess I should let you out for the night, huh?” The tawny owl gave a gentle nip to Harry’s fingers as she fed him an owl treat, before soaring gracefully into the night sky.

 

Sleep was creeping into her limbs as she sat heavily back down at her desk. The long days at the office in addition to the work she had been doing after hours served to occupy her mind thoroughly… So much so that last week, when Ginny had come to have her things delivered to her new apartment, Harry had felt okay. Ginny had been happy, buoyed by the Harpies’ recent win over their long-time rivals, Puddlemere United. Harry was happy too, because Ginny was, and that was _easier_.

 

“Ow, ow. What? What the—” Head still pillowed on her arms, Harry woke to the feeling of a sharp beak pressing into the tender flesh of her wrist. A Ministry owl was perched on top of Harry’s files, a small scroll tied to its leg.

 

On her desk, the small digital clock Harry kept for efficiency’s sake read 4:53 AM.

 

_All senior staff. Come urgently. Break in at Ministry. Proudfoot._

 

“Well… I wanted something to happen…” Harry tossed the owl a treat. She cast a refreshing charm over her robes. Her hair was a lost cause. “The Auror Office,” she called into the fireplace, and disappeared in a flash of green flames.

 

The office was a bustle of activity, Proudfoot fretting over it all with a harried expression over his face.

 

“Talk to Demelza,” Proudfoot said shortly, when he saw Harry arrive, “I have a meeting with Shacklebolt. She’ll update you and anyone else who arrives.” With that, Proudfoot swept into one of the hastily emptied elevators with two Ministry bureaucrats and a pile of floating papers in tow.

 

Demelza was in Proudfoot’s office, her long hair pinned back messily, and presiding over a large blackboard. When Harry appeared, she scribbled Harry’s name onto the blackboard and tapped it sharply with her wand.

 

“I’m tracking what everyone’s doing from here,” Demelza said, “it’s a little bit hectic though. I’ve got Aurors patrolling the scene, patrolling the outskirts. Others are reinstating the wards. Ah, Harry. Could you go interview the witness?”

 

“No one has interviewed the witness yet? When did the break in happen, Demelza? And why is it such a big deal?”

 

“It’s not been long, Harry, only about—oh, three hours. The break in wouldn’t be a big deal except for where it happened and the wards. The intruder managed to disable all the tracking and monitoring wards over a good part of the Ministry. And some secrecy spells as well. We’ve got to get them up again before the morning, or there’s a chance some Muggles will accidentally—well, you know.”

 

“And where did the intruder want to—what did they try to get into?” Harry asked, an unsettled feeling rising in her throat.

 

“It was the Department of Mysteries. Prophecy Hall. Although the intruder came in through the main portals, somehow.”

 

At that moment, a knock came from the door. It was Dawlish, Senior Auror greying at the temples, who was as handsome and as mediocre at his job as ever. “I’ve got some questions, Robins, from the uh, wizards from the Magical Maintenance Department… Oh, Potter, good morning.”

 

“Morning Dawlish.” Harry was grateful for Dawlish’s distraction. She felt cold. Her hands were shaking. She was grateful that Demelza did not seem to have noticed anything the matter.

 

Demelza was speaking to her again, her tone apologetic. “I’m sorry Harry. The witness is staying put in the interview room on Level One. You’ll just need to ask him what he saw. The usual drill. I’ve got—a lot to do, sorry!” With that, Demelza turned to Dawlish, and their conversation continued quietly.

 

It was happening. Whatever Sue had feared was coming to pass. Someone was really truly after the prophecy. They were magically powerful. Or particularly reckless. To have come in through what was basically the front doors of the Ministry of Magic was no mean feat. Did the intruder end up getting the thing that they had sought? Harry thought not. But someone _was_ after the prophecy. Someone _did_ want to bring Voldemort back, and they were seeking the means to do so…

 

Harry found herself walking automatically to the elevators, hardly aware of what she was doing. She gave the other occupants of the elevator a perfunctory nod. “Level One—your floor, isn’t it, Potter?” someone said, before Harry managed propel herself forward and take a deep breath.

 

Right. Interview with the witness. This could be all important. She stilled herself by taking a few more breaths. Her ballpoint pen was in her pocket, as was her notebook. With that, she pushed open the door to the interview room. And stopped short.

 

The large, protuberant eyes of a house elf stared up at her from the couch.

 

“Hello there, I’m Harry Potter.”

 

“Harry Potter,” the diminutive elf squeaked, “honour to meet you, Miss. Miss Harry Potter! A great friend to House Elves!”

 

“Oh, uh, thanks. It’s great to meet you too. Uh, your name?”

 

“I am Tolly the House Elf, bound to serve the Ministry of Magic.” The elf gestured with one knobbly finger to the uniform that he wore, emblazoned with the symbol of the Ministry. “For three hundred years Tolly’s family has served the Ministry.”

 

“Wonderful,” Harry said, reaching forward and shaking Tolly’s hand briefly. “Uh, you’ve done excellent service for the Ministry. Thanks for talking to me.”

 

At this, the Elf beamed with pleasure. Tolly seemed young for a House Elf, his skin a delicate shade of green, his floppy ears oddly endearing. His large grey eyes reminded Harry of another pair of eyes that had looked up at her so trustingly, but she thrust that thought out of her mind.

 

“Please, Tolly, sit down. I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting for so long. Tell me what happened this morning. If you don’t mind?”

 

“Tolly was cleaning the Atrium. Tolly cleans the Atrium on Wednesdays.”

 

Harry made a note in her notepad. She cocked her head to hear Tolly better. As the House Elf’s story unravelled, Harry’s notetaking became more and more hurried. How lucky it was that it was she who had been assigned to this interview...

 

* * *

 

 

As soon as Harry bid Tolly farewell and told the friendly House Elf that he was free to resume his duties, she rushed to the elevator. She had to see Hermione. A _tempus_ charm told her that it was now 8:49 AM. Would Hermione would be at home, or would she already be in her office? Kingsley would surely find Hermione invaluable at this time.

 

But perhaps it was not Hermione she needed—but to examine the scene of the crime herself. After all… The prophecy would not be able to be removed by anyone except those who were the subjects of the prophecy, or the maker of the prophecy, or the Keeper. And what had Sue said? That she had taken precautions… Sue would be here now, surely, since it was the Hall of Prophecy that had been attacked and she was its Keeper.

 

“Level Nine, Level Nine… Come on…”

 

The doors folded open seemingly at a snail’s pace.

 

“Potter!” It was Proudfoot. Alone. Without his bureaucratic entourage. And at the precisely wrong time.

 

“Morning again,” Harry said, and forced herself not to grit her teeth.

 

“You’ll be happy to hear that the wards have more or less been reinstated.”

 

“Is that so?”

 

“Kingsley is not happy with anyone right now, I would advise you to keep a wide berth.” The elevator’s voice chimed sweetly, and Proudfoot made to get out. “Potter, coming? Hold on—where _are you going_? Shouldn’t you be headed back to the Office?”

 

“Level Nine. I’ve got to get some information from the witness to whoever is at the crime scene.” The lie came easily.

 

“Right. Okay. The sooner that we can get to the bottom of this, the sooner the Minister will be off my back, and the sooner everyone can rest easy. This better not be 1996 all over again, Potter.” With that, Proudfoot swept out of the elevator.

 

Harry suppressed a groan. That was the last thing she needed… To have Proudfoot reminded of Voldemort. And of one of the bleakest points in the collective wizarding world. Of course, it would be inevitable… Once what Tolly had told her got out. It would not be her doing, she knew. But with the entirety of the Ministry on her back... And with the Auror Office leaking like a sieve… The news would reach the press, and then inevitably the whole community sooner or later.

 

There was a promise to keep—and a _child_ on the line—and she could _not_ drag more people than necessary into it.

 

The sickly-sweet elevator voice sounded again. Harry straightened her features and muttered under her breath. “Right, I need to do this.”

 

The Department of Mysteries took up the whole of Level Nine. Few Ministry employees came here, and fewer wanted to. The whole floor had a sort of air of uneasiness about it. It was not that anything _looked different_ , they just felt different—and magical beings were particularly sensitive to such things.

 

Harry’s footsteps echoed on the polished black stone. There was no one at the reception desk, but she knew the way to the Hall of Prophecy as though it were burnished on the back of her skull. All that was ten years ago—but Harry _remembered_.

 

“I think we’re done here.” Harry heard the crisp voice of Terence Higgs. He was an investigator stationed not with the Auror Office, but reporting directly to the Wizengamot. Harry did not like his self-satisfied manner but had to admit that his work was always beyond reproach.

 

“Higgs,” Harry said, strolling up leisurely to the entrance of the Hall of Prophecy.

 

“Potter. Good morning.”

 

Behind Higgs’s slight frame, she could see several other Aurors and investigators beginning to put away their instruments, tucking notebooks into pockets, and stowing wands away.

 

“Do you mind if I have a look around?”

 

“We’re done here, Potter, and unless you take any issue with our work…” The corner of his mouth quirked, and not in a friendly manner.

 

“It’s not that. You know the Auror Office is taking the lead on this investigation and I’ve just spoken with our witness. I’d like a better understanding of the geography of the place—to uh, help me recreate it in my mind.” As she spoke, the others filed out, some nodding at her as they passed.

 

“There will be a report filed for Proudfoot. At the moment, _he_ is personally in charge of the investigation. You may ask him for a copy if you like.”

 

Even after working at the Ministry of Magic for so long, she was not used to the overly-bureaucratic delegations and assignations of work—overlapping and getting entangled everywhere, so that people were always stepping on other people’s feet. It was deeply frustrating to anyone who actually wanted to get things done.

 

Harry suppressed a sigh of irritation. “Look, that will take time. I just want to make sure that the witness can be taken at his word. A House Elf as our only witness… I don’t want to waste Proudfoot—or the Wizengamot’s time—time we could be using to track down new leads. How would it look for you, if your case fell apart…”

 

Higgs’s eyes darted around. He was scrutinising her words, wondering at their truthfulness. He could sense that she had her own reasons for wanting to look at the Hall of Prophecy, of course—Harry Potter was no Slytherin—but it couldn’t _hurt_ exactly, and if he did not, Proudfoot surely would.

 

“Go on, then, Potter. I’ll wait here. If you see anything _interesting_ , do let me know.”

 

“Thanks, Higgs.”

 

The Hall of Prophecy was as she remembered. Rows upon rows of crystal orbs, some large, some small, all of them glowing by candlelight. At least two thirds of the tall shelves were still empty, as though waiting for more orbs to fill them. Those that were filled looked _neater_ than Harry remembered, though when she looked closer, there was still a fine layer of dust over them.

 

In one back corner, where the Aurors had been congregated before, some orbs had fallen to the ground—presumably the work of the intruder—but they had not been moved, as only the Keeper was able to move them.

 

A motion detecting spell revealed to Harry that someone had indeed rushed past at great speed, causing this one shelf to collapse. She cast the spell again and saw the place where the intruder had stopped. If there was a specific organisational system to the Hall, then Harry could not fully see it. But the intruder had obviously understood where he had wanted to go. This shelf, unlike many of the others was free of dust. Based on the labels, which looked fairly new, the prophecies had been arranged in chronological order starting from the topmost shelf.

 

  1. 1997\. 1998. Some orbs glowed weakly. Most of them remained cold and dark. But one seemed to call to Harry. Fourth shelf. It shone with an eerie white light brighter than the others. She looked closer at the tag.



 

_(?) to (?)_

_Dark Lord and Harry Potter_

_1998_

 

A prophecy made towards the end of the war. Or perhaps its aftermath. Harry looked at the surrounding orbs. All of them had tags containing _Dark Lord_ , or occasionally, _Harry Potter_. Rarely both. There was a part of her that was desperately curious, and another part of her that wanted to recoil in horror.

 

Magic had its pull, after all, and it should not have been surprising. But Sue had been telling the truth after all. She had been working on these prophecies. She cast some diagnostic spells over the area, over the shelf, but she could not detect anything. Either the intruder had not been able to do much—or they had hidden their tracks very well.

 

But the fourth shelf—with the prophecy that had drawn her eye—it was emptier than it should have been.

 

Harry turned to Higgs. “I trust you’ve spoken with the Keeper of the Hall—asked her whether anything was taken?”

 

She wanted to see Sue—needed to—to ask her some questions…

 

“Well, we have _tried_ to contact her, but she has not been responding. I’ve already sent two of my best people to her residence. They’ve been gone about—two hours.” Higgs frowned. “You don’t think…”

 

“I think we had better go see how they’re going. Two hours is much too long.”

 

“You’re right, Potter.” Higgs glanced around the vast hall. “You’re done here, I gather?”

 

“Yes. Everything checks out. I don’t think I could have done a more thorough job than you have.” This not-lie rolled easily off Harry’s tongue.

 

“Don’t flatter me, Potter. It will get you nowhere. We’d better go now. I’ll just send a message to Proudfoot, and—” With that, Higgs scrawled a message on his notepad, and tapped it briskly with his wand. The note disappeared in a flash of golden light.

 

“Well. Time to go.” Harry smiled grimly. She thought that she already knew what they would find at Sue’s house.

 

* * *

 

 

Sue lived in a small, semi-detached house near the outskirts of London, in an unremarkable sort of neighbourhood. Harry imagined that Sue’s neighbours might have been the kind of people who would also have enjoyed living at Privet Drive. It had the usual protection from muggles that most wizarding residences had. They felt a soft breath of spellcraft wash over them as they stepped past the wards.

 

Something about the house was _off_. Harry had the benefit of experience, and experience told her that _something_ had happened recently here. The air rippled with unease.

 

“I hope you’re prepared for the worst,” she whispered.

 

Higgs shifted his grip on the haft of his wand and cast several wordless shields and silencing spells over the parameters. “I’m at your back, Potter. You take the door.”

 

Harry rapped loudly on the heavy wooden door. No sound or movement from inside. The door was unlocked. Harry pushed it open. Still, silence. “Hello? Sue? Anyone? I’m with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement! Make your presence known if you are in the building.”

 

Behind her, Higgs cast _Hominem revelio_ over the building. “Three signatures, Potter.”

 

Three live people in the building but no movement. This was either an ambush or… Harry pointed to the stairs with her chin, her wand tight in her hand. Higgs followed her lead. But the upstairs landing was clear. The whole upper floor had been converted into one large room, with only two doors leading off to what she assumed was a toilet and bathroom. Indeed, they were—and they were both empty.

 

If she had been here under different circumstances, Harry would’ve been extremely impressed by Sue’s setup—and what it said about her dedication. In one corner was a large bed, a hand-painted screen separating it from the rest of the room. The bed was unmade. The entirety of the rest of the second floor had been devoted to Sue’s work and study. Large, glowing orbs hung from the ceiling; charts and diagrams covered the walls; another corner of the room had been stripped of carpet, with an intricate setting of cauldrons and candles. Low tables neatly stacked with books were scattered around.

 

No sign of a second person living here.

 

“Downstairs, Potter.”

 

Now, Harry followed the other investigator. Higgs stepped warily, scanning the air around them. But then they saw them. Three bodies slumped over the round kitchen table. She recognised Sue, seated facing the doorway. Her long, black hair had been swept up around her head and pinned loosely with a comb, as though she had just woken up. She was wearing a thin robe over flannel pyjamas. The two others, seated on either side of Sue, Harry recognised as belonging to Higgs’s department.

 

“Well, there’s our three. Stay here Potter, I’m going to check the rooms for any magical traps.”

 

“Right.”

 

But already Harry was examining the bodies. There was no doubt they were still alive. Harry could hear their steady and deep breathing. A simple diagnostic spell only confirmed it. The three people were asleep. Very deeply asleep, and their heartrate much slower than usual, but otherwise seemingly no worse for wear.

 

A teapot and three cups of tea on the table. _Ennervate_ had no effect.

 

Higgs reappeared at the doorway. “Nothing,” he said, a grim frown fixed on his brow. “If there was an intruder… they’re long gone.”

 

“Leave it, for now. We need to get them to St. Mungo’s. Poison, I think.”

 

* * *

 

 

Harry patted Demelza gingerly on the back. Demelza had been distraught since she heard about Sue and had rushed over to St. Mungo’s as soon as she could. Harry had spent most of the day at Sue’s house, collecting evidence and combing the house for any sort of clue, before finally trying to finish her report on the three victims’ condition. She was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to crawl into her own bed and bury herself under her blankets.

 

“Oh Merlin, Harry, it should’ve been me who found Sue. I was going to see her this morning—but then Proudfoot called me in, and I didn’t get the chance to send word to her… I can’t believe that… Is there really nothing the Healers can do?”

 

“They said it was probably a large dose of the Draught of Living Death that they’ve been poisoned with. But they are not responding to the Wiggenweld Potion. So, the Healers at St. Mungo’s believe that someone may have created a variation.” Harry had already told Demelza this. Her stomach was churning. “I’m so sorry about this. You two were close.”

 

“Well—not—I mean we were seeing each other for maybe five months. Sue’s been more withdrawn lately—she said she needed some time to herself to work on a project. She wouldn’t tell me anything.”

 

Guilt rose in Harry’s throat. _She_ was the reason that Sue had been— _poisoned_ —and that she could not spend time with her girlfriend. Sue had put her trust in Harry, and Harry had not lived up to her trust.

 

“I’m so sorry, Demelza. I promise I’ll try to get to the bottom of this.”

 

Demelza squeezed Harry’s hand. “I know you will, Harry. Sue always spoke admiringly of you. All those years ago… She came back during the Hogwarts Battle—her parents had moved them all to France—but she wanted to come back.”

 

With one last tremulous smile, Demelza let go of Harry’s hand and bid her goodbye for the day.

 

 


	3. Awakenings

September 2005

 

_Prophecy?_

_The Draught of Living Death?_

_Ministry break in?_

 

Harry’s mind churned with unsettled thoughts. It was she that Sue had put her faith in. It was she who was the only one Tolly the House Elf had told his story to—thus far. She had a good idea of who was behind the Ministry break in, and the poisoning of Sue and the others, and the theft of the prophecy. She had scoured Sue’s house for hiding places, but she could find none. She did not know whether the intruder yet possessed the prophecy or not. It was most likely that he did.

 

The poison though… That did not make sense. Why use what was certainly a new and experimental new potion that was not even strictly speaking a poison? Why leave three living victims and witnesses? If killing had been the goal, then using the Draught of Living Death made no sense. The potion…

 

Harry had woken with these thoughts turning round and round her head at three o’clock in the morning and had not managed to get back to sleep. Things had unravelled quicker than she had anticipated. When she had returned from her second sweep of Sue’s house, Proudfoot had placed her in charge of the case. He had decided to treat Sue’s case as provisionally unconnected to the Ministry break in. Mostly to keep Kingsley off his back. It was ridiculous of course, the two were certainly connected and that would be clear to anyone with any modicum of logic. But Harry was not about to complain about Ministry politics working in her favour.

 

She had time… Only five hours until Proudfoot would show up in the Auror Office. Only five hours until Higgs would see her files and come to the same conclusion that she did… Higgs had been assigned to the case too, forced to collaborate with the Auror Office, not as an equal but under her lead. If it had been another circumstance, Harry would have been pleased at how it must have galled Higgs. But at the moment, she didn’t care. She thought of Higgs only as another obstacle that she had been forced to overcome.

 

Her mind was not as clear as it could’ve been, but she knew that she had to do something. Would Proudfoot cover for her? If only to save face—she hoped so. Most likely not.

 

Well—she was no stranger to being on the run from the Ministry.

 

Throwing her blankets off, Harry began to throw things into a bag, enlarged with an undetectable extension charm. Hermione had proved the benefit of being always prepared for a quick getaway. The last thing she threw into the bag was the bundle of papers she had accrued over the last few weeks. And the single piece of paper she had procured from the Office of Magical Experimentation after she had left St. Mungo’s the previous afternoon.

 

Finally, Harry dressed in sturdy muggle clothing, with her best pair of walking shoes.

 

Bag slung over her shoulders, Harry shouted “Hogwarts!”. And a plume of green flames took her away.

 

* * *

 

 

Harry spilled out onto the carpets of the Headmistress’s Office. The portraits of previous heads looked disapprovingly down at her, some of them tutted with reproach. The round room looked different to how she remembered it. The new Headmistress had applied her own personality to the room, so that it was now furnished with a desk and chairs in a rich, dark wood, with matching side tables and cabinets. Dumbledore’s odd instruments had not been completely done away with, but the few that remained sat unobtrusively around the room. McGonagall instead displayed various pieces of high level Transfiguration work, including a miniature moving chess set that was a copy of the one Harry had come to know very well in her first year.

 

And in the centre of the room, hanging from the ceiling, was a wonderful embroidered rendition of the Hogwarts crest. The colours of each house shimmered in jewel tones, and even from some distance, she could feel the weave of protective magic emanating outwards. Harry was awed by the love and care and magical power that had been put into such a work. But she did not have time to admire it for any length of time.

 

Professor McGonagall—now Headmistress—rushed down the stairs from her quarters, her hair in their night braids, and a tartan dressing gown hanging from her shoulders.

 

When she saw Harry brushing the dust from her clothes, her frowning face took on an air of resigned exasperation. It was an expression all too familiar to Harry, bringing back a tumult of emotions, not the least of which was embarrassment.

 

“Goodness, Potter! What on earth are you doing here? Was your private connection to the Hogwarts Floo not disconnected?”

 

“Well… It was supposed to be, Professor, but I uh, might’ve bent some Ministry rules.” At McGonagall’s beady stare, she quickly added, “But that’s come in very useful in this instance.”

 

“I see. I have learned that to question your judgement is futile, Potter. Nevertheless, you certainly should have sent word.” McGonagall was pulling her dressing gown closed and tying off the sash with firmness. Harry noticed that her black hair had more strands of silver in it than she remembered.

 

“I’m sorry for disturbing you, Professor. But it’s a matter of utmost importance. Uh, professionally speaking. Otherwise I would never—uh, disturb you in the middle of the night.”

 

“It isn’t the first time, Potter. Senior Auror now, isn’t it? Congratulations on your promotion. How can I be of assistance?”

 

Harry smiled awkwardly and glanced down at her shoes. “I’m investigating a matter. You heard about the break in at the Ministry?” At McGonagall’s curt nod, Harry continued, “I’ve been investigating a poisoning that might be related to the break in. I believe the two may be connected. The Ministry is refusing to disclose or acknowledge that there might have been a very specific purpose for the break in.”

 

“Very well.”

 

“I believe that Snape—Professor Snape—might be implicated in this. I need to speak to him. Urgently. Now, really.”

 

“Severus—but how?”

 

Harry frowned. “It isn’t that I do not trust you, Professor, but I don’t want to implicate you in anything that I happen to become involved in after I leave here.”

 

“Can you guarantee me that if I give you the details of Severus’s whereabouts that you will not cause any harm to come to him?”

 

“I will do my best,” Harry said seriously. It heartened her that Professor McGonagall had seemed to recover her trust in Snape following that first year of his tenure as Headmaster.

 

“Very well.” With that, McGonagall went to her desk, and drew a piece of parchment towards her. “There’s a reason that Severus did not wish to speak after the War. He may react poorly to seeing you.”

 

“I think I’m well used to that,” Harry said dryly.

 

“I trust you will take care of yourself, Potter, whatever you may be up to.”

 

“Yes—and you too, Professor. Thank you!” Clutching the piece of parchment in one hand, Harry rushed out the door, desperate to reach the place beyond the anti-apparition wards as soon as possible.

 

The sun was beginning to rise now, just starting to peek over the horizon. The indigo blue light, and the still visible swirl of stars rendered Hogwarts the most beautiful sight. A sight that left Harry breathless, despite—well, everything. Hogwarts would probably always have that effect on her.

 

She took a deep breath of the clean, crisp air. It was September. A new crop of young witches and wizards would be walking the castle and the grounds, a familiar sort of wonder in their eyes. They would call Hogwarts home, as had hundreds of generations before them—and many more after them. Some little part of them would always be part of this place, this patch of earth and air.

 

As soon as she stepped over the anti-Apparition barrier, the parchment in Harry’s hand shimmered, then presented her with a detailed map of a part of Cornwall. A small smile curled around her mouth.

 

* * *

 

 

Rodolphus Lestrange had been a patient man. He understood what it was to wait with no expectation of success. To wait in darkness and solitude, with only the very worst memories to keep him company.

 

How beautiful London was. It had been too long since he had seen its mass of humans, the muggle skyscrapers, and the _cars_ crawling in the streets. Rodolphus was always reminded of his purpose in seeing the accumulated filth of the city… The purpose that was given him in his blood.

 

He despised the Ministry building most of all amidst this mass of eyesores. Hidden underground as it was, the empty Atrium had reminded Rodolphus of what should have been there—a reminder of the inherent superiority of those of magical heritage. And why should the Ministry have to be underneath the ground? To have those muggles tread over them? It was an unnatural order.

 

Of course, Rodolphus’s purpose was to set things to rights again. That was why he had escaped that forsaken rock of a prison yet again. His action would doom his brother. But his brother knew as he did that his life was forfeit to their cause. Rabastan understood and felt as he did. He had always been more a twin than a mere brother. When they were children, they had had an undeniable bond that each of them had valued above all else.

 

Rodolphus knew his task. His instructor had been very clear. He could not afford to be seen anywhere where someone might know him. Rodolphus stayed in muggle hostels or squatted amongst the London homeless. They were numerous. Yet more proof of the muggles’ degeneration and decline. But with his ragged coat and grey prison garb, his unshaven face and matted hair, he was indistinguishable from them. That thought did not bring him any joy or any shame—he did it all for the greater good.

 

He had done what he had needed to do in London now. The plan that they had developed had worked as it was meant to. Perfectly.

 

Rodolphus had wanted to kill the woman and the two Aurors—to watch the resistance fade from their eyes—it had taken restraint to poison them instead. He told himself that they were as good as dead anyway. There was no antidote. They deserved it for the side they’d taken during the war and Rodolphus was never prey to emotions such as pity.

 

“Excuse me…” It was an elderly man, stooped at the shoulders and his brown skin worn with lines.

 

Rodolphus paused and turned to look at the man who had disturbed his thoughts.

 

“We are holding services this evening at St. Dominic’s church,” the old man said, waving a small stack of pamphlets feebly. “Everyone is welcome. You too. We would love to see you there. It is never too late to be saved!”

 

How ridiculous it was to consider that he needed _saving_. He glanced down at the pamphlet the man held out, emblazoned with clear blue skies and beams of light and welcoming hands.

 

“No, it is too late for me,” he said, in a voice that was a cold and empty as the streets around them both. His hand moved towards the wand in his pocket but at the very last moment, he curled his hands into fists inside his pocket instead. “Leave me alone.”

 

Something in his tone must have warned the stranger of the danger Rodolphus posed. The old man wondered away, pushing his pamphlets into a pocket of his coat and wrapping his arms around himself. He cast Rodolphus one last, baleful glance as he turned the corner and disappeared.

 

Rodolphus let out a puff of white breath into the night. It would not do to linger in London any longer.

 

* * *

 

 

Harry landed—this time gracefully—in a small country laneway. McGonagall’s hand-drawn map moved again and directed her towards a small cottage down the lane. Bright summer flowers bloomed amongst the hedgerows. Even in the early dawn, the scene was a quaint as a postcard. Harry could not imagine Snape living in a place like this. A place that seemed like something from one of those period dramas that Aunt Petunia used to enjoy watching.

 

_Chestnut Cottage_ read McGonagall’s label. Harry almost missed the gap in the hedges where there was a small dirt path, and a small mailbox. Folding the map in her pocket, Harry pushed her way through.

 

Harry didn’t know what she expected but the cottage was both like Snape—and not. She could see why it was called Chestnut Cottage as there was a row of beautiful chestnut trees in front of the house. The small building was surrounded by a low stone wall and the garden was thriving. Harry recognised both magical and non-magical plants in the garden. No doubt they would all be used in potions, or cooking, or something. The Snape she knew was definitely not the type to keep an ornamental garden. The house itself was a small rectangular shaped building with tall windows, its door and window frames painted a soft yellow.

 

There was a layer of spells around the house, but she could not detect any danger. Her wand held firmly in her hand, she approached the door.

 

“Snape!” she called, rapping hard with her knuckles. “Snape! I’m here on behalf of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, to speak to you about an important matter.”

 

Several long beats of silence.

 

The door was wrenched open from the inside. Her old professor glared down at her from the crack in the door.

 

“Potter,” he sneered. And Harry tried to suppress the strange, churning feeling that came over her. This was a voice she had not heard for seven years, and immediately, she thought of that first day in the Potions classroom.

 

Was Snape surprised to see her? He did not seem so. Was he angry? The neutral coldness of his face did not seem to say so.

 

“Uh, good morning Professor.” Even as she spoke, she realised that Snape looked as though he had not slept—that despite it being just past five o’clock in the morning, Snape was fully dressed in white shirt and black trousers.

 

“What, Potter?” Even his voice was without emotion, merely customary irritation.

 

“I have to speak to you. Can I come in?”

 

“No,” Snape said, “tell me what is going on. How did you get my address?”

 

Harry put the weight of their past—and the years of taut silence between them—to the back of her mind. “Professor McGonagall gave it to me. Look. You’ve heard about the break in at the Ministry? I’m not strictly working for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I’m investigating a poisoning that I believe you may be implicated in.”

 

“A poisoning?” Snape raised his eyebrows. Harry could not read the expression on his face.

 

“Yes.” Harry summoned the piece of parchment into her hand. “You submitted a notice to the Ministry about your intention to register a dangerous new potion, an adaptation of the Draught of Living Death.”

 

Snape nodded, almost imperceptibly, his mouth pressed into a thin line.

 

“Three people have been poisoned by such a potion.”

 

“And you believe that I am responsible. Get out, Potter.” Snape made to close the door.

 

“Please! There’s something else. I need your help. Someone is trying to frame you. A Death Eater. He wants to bring Voldemort back.” The words spilled out in a tumble. It was good to speak these things aloud.

 

“A Death Eater. The Dark Lord. Very well. Come in then.”

 

If the gardens had surprised Harry, the interior reminded her entirely of Snape. The cottage appeared to be a single, long room, with a small staircase leading up to a loft, where Harry assumed Snape slept. Furniture appeared to be minimal, and there were thick blue curtains in all the windows. A step up from black curtains, Harry supposed. On one side of the cottage, close to the fireplace, there sat a single rather shabby armchair, surrounded by piles of books, and a larger cardboard box of books that seemed to be a makeshift coffee table. The other side of the cottage seemed to serve as a combined kitchen and potions lab. Snape had already migrated his strange things floating in jars to his new home, as she could see them filling a whole china cabinet.

 

“Wow, nice décor,” Harry could not help saying.

 

Snape sneered in response and led her through the room and to the kitchen.

 

Snape’s workbench was also a mess. It was a damned miracle that anything could be found. There were bundles of papers, half-bent quills, and open books scattered everywhere. A small cauldron was set up in one corner—some sort of congealed greyish thing still inside of it. Bundles of dried herbs and other potion ingredients lay about haphazardly. Here too, were various, horrible things floating in an assortment of jars. For a Potions Master who had drilled students on the importance of a clean work area and precise notetaking, he clearly had little regard for the whole thing himself.

 

If only Neville, who’d been kept back a dozen times to clean his workbench after Potions, could see Snape’s office now. And Harry silently vowed that Hermione would never set foot in this place—unless her best friend should ask for the quickest way to expire.

 

“So… Can I get a cup of tea?”

 

“My patience is wearing thin, Potter. Tell me what exactly is going on.”

 

Snape appeared to own one stool for the kitchen bench and another chair to go with the large wooden table. He wasn’t one for guests then—as though one could not deduce that from his winning personality already.

 

Harry perched herself on the stool. “I don’t know if you’ve been reading _The Prophet_ …”

 

“That utter tripe.”

 

“I’m going to be honest with you—”

 

“How _kind_ of you, Potter.”

 

“Well. Sue Li is the Keeper of the Hall of Prophecy. She—and two others—were poisoned at her home with the potion. St. Mungo’s hasn’t been able to wake her or the others. A few weeks ago she sent me a letter. She said that someone was going to steal a particular prophecy, and that she was afraid. And now, with what Tolly has told me… Tolly is a House Elf… I am certain that it can only be a Death Eater who broke into the Ministry, and who has poisoned Sue.” Snape’s expression was getting darker as she spoke.

 

“Are you going to arrest me then?” Snape’s voice was cold, his face expressionless.

 

“Shit, uh, Professor, don’t be _fucking_ ridiculous. We have to get the hell out of here. We’ve got to find who really wanted to kill Sue. And _without_ the Ministry interfering. They _would_ believe instantly in your guilt once they hear… Well, once they’ve read my reports. They would have you for a scapegoat. We’ve got… Less than two hours until Proudfoot is back in the Auror Office, and we need to leave before they come _here_.”

 

Snape was silent for several moments. Then he said, waspishly, “I’m _not_ your professor any longer.”

 

“Alright, _Snape_.”

 

He turned a glare upon her, which she ignored. He got what was coming to him, the bastard.

 

“So, you’ve come here to… What? Ask me to go on the run with you? Ask me to go hunt down an unspecified Death Eater?”

 

“Well—you’ve got the gist of it, Snape. And I want to see your notes—uh, for the potion. I want to know if you can counteract its effects. Or if you know how the Death Eater managed to get a hold of the recipe. There’s no recipe here, in your form.”

 

“You may be looking for more than a single Death Eater, Potter. Certainly they will have had help. There is no mystery to how the potion may have passed into other hands.” Snape riffled through the stack of papers strewn across his work bench, emerging with a roll of parchment. “Here it is, notes presented to the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers on alterations to the Draught of Living Death. Lax as their admissions policies are, I know of no other Death Eater who would be admitted to the Society.”

 

Then Snape sneered, as though he had realised the irony of that statement.

 

“What precisely are the alterations?”

 

“ _If_ you had paid any attention in Potions, Potter, you would know that the Draught causes a deathlike slumber in anyone who imbibes it. The only known cure is the Wiggenweld Potion. This alteration renders the Wiggenweld ineffective, though its effects on the drinker remain the same.”

 

“So… There’s no way of reversing this. Why would anyone have cause to make such alterations?”

 

“Well—it has certain implications for our understanding of the magical uses of plants of the… Never mind. I can see you have grown no aptitude for this topic. Let’s just say—for the sake of scholarly inquiry.”

 

“When was this presentation?”

 

“Several months ago. Before my official resignation. I was away from Hogwarts during the Easter break. End of March.”

 

“Do you remember who was present when you gave the presentation?”

 

“It could’ve been any number of people. The current membership of the Society number to some one thousand individuals around the world. At any given conference, perhaps only a third of that number will attend, and out of the total number of attendees, I cannot imagine more than a few dozen would be interested in this potion.”

 

“You’re not rating your work very highly.”

 

“It is not a matter of the work—or my research,” Snape said, waspishly, “the Society is more a social club than anything else. A Slug Club like fixture in Magical Academia. The attendees usually prefer to attend social gatherings during conferences. Dagworth-Granger was _remarkably_ full of himself.”

 

Harry ignored Snape’s insinuating tone of voice and waited for him to continue.

 

“The paper I gave to the Society was incomplete. Deliberately so. To have succeeded in rendering the intended effect of immunity to the Wiggenweld… To have deduced the full methodology from the theories I presented… It would’ve taken a trained and expert potion maker. And none of the dunderheaded Death Eaters in Azkaban are that.”

 

“Deliberately incomplete?”

 

“I could not risk exposing the full methodology and theory—”

 

“—in case someone took your credit?”

 

Snape grimaced, but he did not deny it. “It is a common practice. We can be assured that whoever poisoned Miss Li had knowledge of the adapted potion—hence, they were at the only place it was officially presented—and since there were, that gives us an avenue to pursue…”

 

“I knew I could count on you to help, Snape.” The sentiment slipped out of Harry’s mouth without her quite meaning it to.

 

“You don’t believe that _I_ wanted Miss Li out of the way? For my own reasons?”

 

“I know you’re not so stupid as to use an experimental potion that you yourself developed. You would surely use a common, easily obtained poison. And a lethal one.”

 

Snape raised his eyebrows. “Do you have _any idea_ where we are to start looking for any number of potion makers? Or one of dozens of possibly-escaped Death Eaters?”

 

“No. But we have to go. Please.”

 

“How can I trust you, Potter?”

 

“You know how,” Harry said.

 

Snape raised his wand; with a wordless summoning charm, a small rucksack sailed down the stairs. Snape shoved the sheaf of parchment into the bag, shouldered it, and followed Harry out the front door. If Potter was right… He cast several protective charms over the house, wincing at the thought of the destruction he would inevitably find the next time he would see the house. Yet another good thing disturbed by Henrietta Potter.

 

 


	4. Laneways

 September 2005

 

The two of them walked in silence. It was not an easy silence. Harry thought again of the letters she had written, and the letters that she had not sent.

 

The day after her eighteenth birthday, Healer Smethwyck had told her that Snape was awake. Taking pity on her. She had rushed into the room to see Snape sitting up in the bed, a scowl already fixed on his face. When Snape saw her, something in his eyes had flickered—a flash of shock and horror—and then he had put on his mask. Harry had thanked him for everything he had done, she had shown him the official pardon from the Ministry, fixed with the silvery wax seal of office. He had not responded. The next day, she had returned, hoping that Snape felt readier to speak. But Healer Smethwyck had told her that she was not welcome, that Snape had expressly forbidden her from his room.

 

And they had not spoken to each other for the next seven years.

 

“I can’t believe that you live here.” Harry could not quite keep the incredulity out of her voice.

 

“A gift, from Aberforth Dumbledore—who had ownership of it after Albus died,” Snape said blandly.

 

“Dumbledore lived here?” That she could frankly believe.

 

“He never lived here—he only thought he might like to—and bought it. He never had the chance…”

 

“It’s very beautiful.” Harry had noted how the garden had none of the cultivated blandness of Aunt Petunia’s lawns—it had seemed wild, and yet well cared for.

 

Snape, of course, seemed entirely unimpressed with emotions such as wonder. He stalked through the gap in the hedgerow and into the laneway impatiently.

 

“Do you have any idea where we’re going, Potter?”

 

“We’ll need to stick to Apparition, flying, and muggle transportation. The Ministry will be monitoring everything else. Wait!”

 

Snape stopped in his tracks. A flash of bright yellow, and a folded piece of parchment appeared. Harry reflexively plucked it out of the air. She already knew what it would contain, having seen many such missives.

 

“You’re wanted. Enough evidence to arrest you on sight. An alert to the other Aurors that they should look out for you. Signed, Terence Higgs. He’s more diligent than I gave him credit for.”

 

“Higgs—a good student.” There was something almost like pride in the quirk of Snape’s brow.

 

“Yes, well. He’s put those skills to some use. He’ll be after you—as will be the entirety of the Auror Office. They’ll certainly be pinning the poisoning on you. Higgs probably doesn’t like that. But they’ll be needing someone to start from.” Harry grimaced, and said, “I’m really sorry. Again.”

 

Snape did not say anything in response to that. He merely picked up his pace, forcing Harry to trot to keep up.

 

“Uh look, it’s probably better to Apparate from here instead of going into somewhere more crowded. Look, please let me Apparate us somewhere. Anywhere. I think I may know a place where we can just lay low for a little while.” Harry risked a glance to Snape’s frowning face. “You’re going to have to trust me, Professor.”

 

Snape slowed and looked at her. His black eyes were inscrutable. Then to Harry’s surprise, he offered his arm to her.

 

* * *

 

 

Harry knew it was safest that she did not return to a place that she had ever been associated with. It was with that in mind that Harry finally Apparated the two of them to a seaside town overlooking the English Channel. Hermione’s parents had holidayed here, some years back—she had seen the postcard on the refrigerator at Ron and Hermione’s flat. As they landed in a secluded spot out of sight of residents and tourists, Snape extricated his arm from her grasp with a blank expression.

 

They had spent the best part of the morning Apparating to a few magical communities around the country, making sure that Snape was observed whilst Harry remained hidden beneath her trusted invisibility cloak. Were the Ministry to receive reports of their whereabouts, they would be misled. At least for a little while. It would only keep them at bay for a day or two at the most, before they turned to more reliable means of tracking missing witches and wizards.

 

“Where are we?” Snape said, glancing curiously around. From here, they could see the lapping water and a stretch of beach.

 

“Exmouth,” Harry said, “never been here before.”

 

“Brilliant,” Snape sneered, “I suppose you’ll want to do some sightseeing whilst we are here.”

 

“Might as well blend in,” Harry said breezily. “Not so many tourists around at this time of the year, though.”

 

Snape said nothing, merely scowled.

 

“Come on! We’ll find a place to stay.” Harry cast an alertness charm over her immediate surroundings surreptitiously. “The Ministry works slowly.”

 

They found the path which lead down to the seaside. The Victorian-era beach promenade and pavilions were looking a little worn, but Harry, who had been denied the Dursleys’ beachside holidays, took great delight in the sight of them.

 

Harry pointed at the row of large, white Victorian buildings. “We should stay in that hotel.”

 

“Trust you, Potter, to choose the most ostentatious possible location for laying low. Are we not meant to be blending in?”

 

“The Ministry doesn’t know where we are, at present. There will be tourists. And I’ve always wanted to stay in a seaside hotel.” Harry tried to sound aloof when she said, “ _You_ don’t have to stay here.”

 

Snape gave a long-suffering sigh, and made his way towards the door, which was painted a royal blue.

 

“A room please,” Harry said, to the bored-looking woman at the reception, “for me, and uh, my colleague. Three nights.”

 

“Two rooms,” Snape interjected.

 

“A suite, if you’ve got one,” Harry said, raising an eyebrow.

 

“Apartment with two double rooms. Third floor.” The receptionist looked up from her computer screen, “Will that do?”

 

“Yes. Good.”

 

“Credit card?”

 

Harry pulled the rarely-used piece of plastic out of her wallet. The woman handed over two swipe cards with a disinterested sort of glance up at the two of them. Snape stared coldly ahead.

 

Even though she was here with her hated old Potions professor, under strange circumstances, Harry could not help but feel a flash of excitement. Her ten-year-old self would have relished any chance of an escape from Privet Drive—at the chance to stay in a nice hotel, and to go swimming at the beach. If only it were not autumn and starting to get cold.

 

This was luxury on the run. Still, she had the trusty expandable tent in her backpack if the need did arise. Harry was not stupid enough to hope to camp out on a forest floor somewhere when she did not have to though.

 

The hotel room was decently sized, with a small sitting area, two tiny bedrooms, and an adjoining bathroom. Harry naturally took the bedroom with the sea view. Snape did not complain. In fact, he continued to stare ahead stonily in the same stupid way that he had been doing all day, hardly saying a word.

 

“Hey Snape. Need you focus here. Meeting time. Sit down.”

 

Snape sat down on one of the armchairs and raised an eyebrow in a way Harry found oddly heartening. “I’m listening.”

 

“I’m going to send a message to Hermione and Ron from here once we are sure there’s no Ministry surveillance,” Harry said.

 

“Your Gryffindor pack?”

 

“Don’t scoff. We need them to keep an eye out on the Ministry’s progress—and to monitor Sue’s condition.”

 

“It is a shame about Miss Li,” Snape said, “I will need to look into possible antidotes as quickly as possible—as soon as we are certain that we have not been tracked.”

 

“Antidotes. Right.” Suddenly, Harry buried her head in her hands and moaned despairingly. “I’ve done it again, haven’t I? I’ve put everyone—you especially—in danger. I’m always getting you into trouble.”

 

Snape stared incredulously at this woman. How often had he dreamed of those words coming from Harry Potter when she had been in Hogwarts? How often had he cursed the girl for her ungratefulness? But the scene now was almost comical. This was nothing. To be thought of as a villain by the wizarding world at large was nothing compared to the pain he had felt that first time he had seen Lily’s eyes in another girl’s face, and found, not compassion or warmth, but anger and suspicion.

 

It was no less than he deserved. And now, he would endure, as he had always endured.

 

“Don’t be maudlin, Potter,” he said brusquely, “We’ll have to set up some wards around the premises and scout the area to make sure we have not been followed by your fellow Aurors. It would help if you had another wand—I keep a spare in case…”

 

Snape procured the spare wand from his rucksack. It was of inferior make to his own Ollivander’s wand, but it answered to his touch, and had the added benefit of being untraceable.

 

“As far as the Ministry is concerned, I’m tracking you down. My earlier memo to the Auror Office hinted as much. They wouldn’t suspect that we are together—uh, in the same place.” Harry looked up to where Snape was standing, all the way on the other side of the room, his profile turned towards her. “All the same, I think you’d better put up the wards.”

 

Snape did as she had asked, sweeping his wand in an elegant arc, and repeating the motion several times wordlessly. When he was done, Harry could feel the reassuring, and almost familiar thrum of Snape’s magic.

 

When she had waited for Snape to recover, Harry had become attuned to the strange spikes and edges of his magic. She had felt it strengthen as he slowly recovered. At the time, it had felt like an echo of the way Hogwarts had similarly begun to knit together, heal over and regrow.

 

“I want to get familiar with our surroundings, Snape. I’m going to go for a walk.”

 

“A walk? Alone?”

 

“We need a discreet way of communicating with one another. Aurors use keyed messages. A keyed Protean Charm.” Harry looked down. “Of course, I don’t think you would like that.”

 

Snape did not grip his forearm as he reflexively wanted to. The Dark Mark had faded to almost nothing more than scar, and it was a much more complex piece of magic than a Protean Charm. “You had charmed coins in fifth year. During the utter farce with your own student-led paramilitary organisation Dumbledore’s Army,” Snape said.

 

“Hardly,” Harry said, “if anything it was a resistance movement against an occupying power. Anyway, there’s no real need for that. I just thought of something.”

 

Harry rummaged through her rucksack and pulled out two contraptions that looked like the muggle television remotes Snape could still vaguely remember from his childhood. One was white, and the other was grey.

 

“These are portable telephones—mobile phones. Newest muggle technology and wonderful inventions. These are Nokia 1100 models. Most muggles have probably got one these days—a mobile phone that is. They work just like telephones and I can send you messages too. This one also has the time, a calculator, torch, and you can change the ringtone. They run on batteries so they’ll need to be charged up occasionally. Maybe once every two weeks.”

 

Maybe she was sounding a little more like Arthur Weasley than she had wanted to, but it was silly of her not to have thought of the mobile phones first thing. The Ministry was certainly unlikely to have either the knowledge or the capacity to be able to track them through their mobile phones as muggle police detectives apparently could. She needed to spend more time with Hermione, who had a real enthusiasm for all things ‘gadgety’ as she called it.

 

Snape picked up the _mobile phone_ and turned it over in his hand. He had not kept up with the development of muggle technology for many years, but the last he had heard of portable telephones, they were huge and cumbersome.

 

“Here,” Harry said, “I’ll send you a message.”

 

The phone in Snape’s hand made a small noise, and the greyscale screen lit up. Harry leaned over and demonstrated unlocking the phone and opening the text message.

 

“Why have you written an uppercase ‘r’ and ‘u’ instead of the words ‘are’ and ‘you’?” Snape said, disapproving, but also possibly bewildered.

 

“Ah well, there’s a cost per character. So, most people try to use as few characters as possible. Here, let me show you how to send a message.”

 

Snape was quite good with this; he picked up on the uses of the mobile phone quickly, although he remained irritated by the shortening of whole words to single letters. He and Hermione would probably get along very well. Though this was _not_ a thought that Harry cared to voice to his face.

 

When they had finally decided on a series of codes, and gave each other’s phone numbers a suitable alias, Harry swung her coat around her shoulders and finally left for her reconnaissance walk. Snape was still bent over his phone, though he said that he would begin working on the antidote in her absence.

 

Harry slipped her mobile phone and room key into a pocket of her jeans. It was already becoming late in the afternoon, and the sky had a lowering look. She would not be able to walk for very far. Harry cast a silent spell checking on the state of their wards. No notable breaches.

 

The town really was beautiful. The sea and the little town with its church and the nearby hills. Everything was quiet. She could hear the sweeping sound of the waves and the gentle ripple of the wind. Harry found that she did not miss the constant din of London at all.

 

She focused on exploring the streets around their hotel. The main street was quiet with people going about their daily business. Harry watched them, quite unconscious of the discombobulated way she seemed to appear to passers-by.

 

Quite suddenly, she felt a giggle overcome her. To think that the feared Potions Master had become fascinated by muggle technology when no doubt he would feel the urge to snatch such things out of the hands of any student at Hogwarts.

 

Harry had been surprised when he had accepted her story in the first place.

 

Snape had been doing well for himself on the surface of things. He had been a reformist Headmaster of Hogwarts, staying on far longer than anyone had truly existed. From what Harry heard—she didn’t want to think of it as ‘keeping tabs’—Snape commanded the respect of his colleagues and the compliance of his students. It had come as somewhat of a surprise to those who cared that Snape had resigned from his post earlier in the year. Harry had sometimes wondered whether Snape was lonely… She knew that it was not really her place to consider such things.

 

Maybe Snape was just bored. He had finally done what he had wanted at Hogwarts and was ready to leave. This time for good. Harry considered the trajectory of Snape’s life. Hogwarts was always the force, pulling him towards itself. He had almost been about to die there. Maybe he had always meant to die there, like the snake that swallowed its own tail.

 

In thinking about Snape, Harry had not given thought to what she had meant to do. She glanced around her. The trickle of people on the streets had gradually melted away as the day got later. Harry’s detection spell had not sensed any magical activity or she would have been alerted. She methodically canvassed the main streets surrounding the hotel and placed several detection spells that would be triggered by any use of magic in what she thought would be strategic locations.

 

Finally, she returned to the hotel and explored the layout of the place briefly. Snape had put up very little resistance to her entreaties. Could it be that he was finally softening his stance on ignoring her completely? And yet, he could never truly deny all the things which had made their connection indelible.

 

She returned to their rooms to find Snape sitting and seemingly meditating over a cauldron. Harry had hoped that he would be asleep. She should have done this earlier, in a secluded corner of the hotel, perhaps.

 

“I’m going to send a message to Hermione.”

 

Harry glanced at her watch. It was almost nine o’clock at night. Hermione would be at home and this would be the safest way.

 

Snape was murmuring spells, layering them one over the other so that they shimmered in the air over his cauldron briefly, before fading from sight. Finally, he pocketed his wand again and turned back to the contents of his rucksack.

 

Harry pulled out her own wand from her sleeve. She didn’t want to do this in front of Snape—but that was foolish, she told herself. There was nothing to be embarrassed about. She thought of the sound of her mother’s voice as she sang a lullaby, and the strength of her father’s arms holding her.

 

“ _Expecto patronum_ ,” Harry whispered.

 

The doe formed effortlessly, perfectly silver and graceful. She stepped silently around the room in a circle, before coming back to rest her head against Harry’s open hand. Harry could feel Snape’s stare on the doe even though his face was cast in shadow. She knew that his eyes followed wherever the doe went.

 

“Go to Hermione,” Harry said, leaning down, “only show yourself when she is alone. Give Hermione this message. I am safe, and I am with Professor Snape. We might have a lead on who is responsible for the attack. Keep us updated on the situation and any leads you might have. Try to keep the Aurors off our backs. Go!”

 

With that, the doe paced away and faded into a spot of silver, leaving the room seemingly darker than it was.

 

Snape did not say anything, merely turned away and made himself seem busy with his potions notes. It was ridiculous to feel guilty about this and it wasn’t her fault if Snape wanted to act like an idiot who repressed every emotion he had ever had.

 

“I’m going to get ready for bed,” Harry announced into the silence. Then she disappeared into the bathroom before Snape had a chance to respond—or not respond, as was more likely.

 

The whole situation was bloody awkward.

 

Harry stood under the spray of the shower, staring blankly into the white tiles. The doe—she tried to remember and hold onto how it made her feel. Warm and safe, as though it would always be there, ready to catch her when she fell. With the doe beside her, she was not alone.

 

With Snape in the room beyond, she could not help but think of that night in the forest. The water had been cold, and colder still because the Horcrux had tried to cut the air from her lungs. But before she had jumped into that pool, she had felt warm and safe with the doe that was the precise mirror of her own. She had felt the push of the animal’s ribs, its heart underneath, its perfect simulation of life. It had left little breaths in the night air, like little tendrils of smoke from a tealight.

 

It had turned its eyes towards her, and she had known that she could trust it. It had felt as though she had known the doe for all her life.

 

The water was running lukewarm now. She had stayed too long in the shower. Then the reality of the situation dawned on her, and she felt a flush of embarrassment that the water could not wash away. Here she was sharing a hotel room with a man who had done his best to ignore her existence for the better part of seven years, and who, for the seven years prior to that, had been the cause of endless frustration and anger and poor educational outcomes.

 

Yes, that was all true. But this was also the man who had spent those years looking out for her from the shadows. He had been rude and mean and a terrible teacher. And all the while, he had felt terribly guilty—he had been desperate to atone for the sake of a woman who had never felt as he did—he had been prepared to die for it. And who was Harry to him but the means to his absolution?

 

Harry stared at her face in the foggy mirror. Wrapped in a towel, she looked scrawnier than ever, closer to fifteen than twenty-five. In the mirror’s distortion, she could not be discernibly mistaken for either of her parents. Her green eyes seemed enormous in her thin, white-cheeked face. Apart from her eyes, she was rather plain. And if not for her eyes, she thought suddenly and viciously, Snape would not have cared a whit for her.

 

Dressed in her blue flannel pyjamas, with her wet hair wound up at the back of her head, Harry re-emerged tentatively. Snape was sat exactly where he had been, a quill held loosely in his hand, the inkpot balanced on his knee, and his head bent over parchment.

 

“You can use the bathroom now, if you want,” Harry said. There was still no response, not that she really expected one.

 

She sighed. Snape always disorientated her. But if he wanted to be taciturn then let him be so. Harry marched herself over to her bedroom and forcing herself to ignore the strangeness of the situation, climbed into the bed and pulled the covers over her head.

 

_Another child is chosen. The Dark Lord rises once more._ Those were the reasons she was here. There was a child out there who needed their help. Sue needed their help. This was her job. Harry closed her eyes and thought of the forest again, the rich smell of rotting leaves, the cold moonlight, the sound of voices from beyond the trees. She slept.

 

* * *

 

 

When Harry woke with the sun in her eyes. As she slipped out of bed she saw that the room beside hers had clearly not been used. The door was wide open and the bed was still made. Her heart leapt into her throat. Had Snape left in the night? Had he been taken? But then she saw him, slumped in the same chair he had occupied last night.

 

Snape must have fallen asleep over his notes. Thankfully, he had not spilled any ink. The last time Harry had seen him like this, he had almost died from a giant snakebite. He was paler then, and frailer looking. At least now he was still breathing.

 

Harry did not know whether to wake him, so she went downstairs to breakfast. She helped herself to huge servings of scrambled eggs, sausages, tomatoes, and buttered toast. And as she ate, she observed the hotel guests. There were not many of them—mostly just retirees since summer holidays were over. There was a couple who seemed to be on their honeymoon—Harry assumed—since they were behaving in a particularly sickly-sweet manner towards each other.

 

She and Ginny should’ve gone on a honeymoon. It would not have changed the inevitable end of their relationship, but it would have been a good memory. The wizarding world had been rather _old-fashioned_ about their relationship—but their family had never made a fuss. Harry wondered whether they would’ve had anything to say if they had decided to get married and go on a honeymoon.

 

As each guest came in, Harry cast a silent secrecy spell. But the hotel guests were just people wanting a break in a seaside town. Harry waited, but Snape did not come down, so she wrapped a few slices of toast in a napkin and tucked it under her coat.

 

“Potter! Where did you go?” Snape looked angrier than he had looked yesterday, Harry noted.

 

“Down to breakfast—like a normal human being, Snape. I even brought you some toast. And one of those small packets of jam.”

 

Snape sneered at her offering. He had not even made himself a cup of tea, she noticed. Most likely, he had not eaten since yesterday morning. Or even the night before, since she had disturbed him at the cusp of dawn. “This is _not_ a holiday, Potter, or have you been too busy having _breakfast_ and watching the sunrise.”

 

“Look, I wasn’t the one who slept past dawn, and in an armchair no less. And breakfast is bloody important okay. You should eat some.” Harry dropped the toast she was still stupidly holding onto the coffee table. “It’s not as though we have not taken precautions. I’ve checked out the other guests. Muggles all of them.”

 

“It’s not as though _Death Eaters_ would stroll down to breakfast, Potter. We need to have a plan. There’s no use just sitting here without any leads. God knows why you have forced _me_ to be you accomplice in this.”

 

Would Snape ever stop looking at her like she had the wit and common sense of a toddler? Harry thought it likely not.

 

“You’re here because you’re being framed by _another member_ of the organisation you so _thoughtfully_ joined when you were younger. We’re trying to find out why. _You_ need to be working on an antidote.”

 

Perhaps the reference to Snape’s poor teenage decisions was a little much, because he was looking rather mutinous.

 

“Well then, Potter, perhaps you’d like to tell me _how_ we can even begin to find this Death Eater. And I do recall your Department of Magical Law Enforcement very publicly assuring the wizarding public that all Death Eaters were deceased or safely locked away in Azkaban.” Snape had crossed his arms over his chest and was stubbornly staring out of the window overlooking the sea.

 

“There may have been members of the organisation who had escaped our notice. Yes, yes, I _know_ you provided incredibly important and helpful information to Kingsley. But the spread of the organisation might have been even broader than you knew. Links to the Continent? Secret sympathisers amongst old Pureblood families?”

 

“The Dark Lord was always very insular. He was a typical British xenophobe as well as a Pureblood supremacist. He shared that with many muggles he sought to suppress.” Snape still was not looking at Harry. “The Dark Lord also lost much of the support he had earlier possessed—as I understand—when he moved from political agitation to paramilitary actions. It stopped seeming as acceptable. He tried to seize control of the Ministry again at the very end… But if her had taken over the Ministry at the very beginning…”

 

“You’ve been studying up on this?”

 

“I have been trying to understand…” Snape cut himself off before Harry heard what it was precisely that he had been trying to understand. “That doesn’t concern you. Nor can it help the victims in this case. You are certain that you have detected no one of interest to us in our surrounds. We must begin to work on the antidote.”

 

“And figure out who is trying to kill people and frame you.” And to some whoever it was that wanted to subject another child to a horrible prophecy. But this, Harry did not tell Snape. This knowledge, Harry kept close to her heart. And if there was an inkling of doubt, she thought back to the way those words had looked on parchment. Black ink like a judge’s sentence—a sentence for life, or for death.

 

 


	5. Beaches

September 2005

 

Henrietta Potter was bored. It was true that she was the type of person to be easily bored. But she had not thought that she could be bored under these particular circumstances. Yet she was undeniably, hopelessly bored.

 

She might have been hiding out with a wanted man—her old childhood nemesis, to boot—trying to solve a mysterious break-in and the poisoning of three people, but watching someone bent silently over a piece of parchment was not stimulating. Snape shifted slightly and twirled the quill in his hand. He had been staring at a particular diagram for what had felt like several hours. Harry had spread out her own casefiles around her but could not concentrate on them, instead watching silently as Snape slowly ate the pieces of toast she had brought him from breakfast.

 

They had not spoken since the morning, and Harry, in addition to being simply bored, was irritated and hungry. It was well past lunchtime.

 

“Hey, Snape? I’m going to buy us some food from one of the supermarkets nearby.” No response. That was fine.

 

“Potter. I need some ingredients.”

“Ingredients easily available at a muggle supermarket?” Snape handed her a list in his tiny, cramped handwriting. “Ah. Should’ve guessed not. Do you have any idea where I might get these?”

 

“Going to my usual supplier is out of the question. Most of these are able to be collected in the wild. And of course, Hogwarts would have a ready supply of all of these.”

 

“I do not want to bring Professor McGonagall into this. But I have an idea of how we can get a hold of all these from Hogwarts without alerting any of the professors.” Harry smiled grimly. “Hey, Kreacher the House Elf?”

 

The old Elf appeared with a loud crack in the middle of the room. “Master Potter called?”

 

“Hello, Kreacher. How have you been?”

 

Kreacher made a noise in the back of his throat like a cat preparing to cough up a hairball or two. “Kreacher has been working at Hogwarts and taking care of the house at Grimmauld Place once a fortnight as Master Potter asks.”

 

“Thank you Kreacher, the house is looking very well.” And she had only seen him weeping in his old ‘bedroom’ a few times over the last year.

 

Kreacher made another sniffing noise. Though they had put their antagonism largely behind them, Kreacher’s personality was rather difficult. He might have also been rather embarrassed still over his heroics during the battle seven years ago.

 

“Kreacher, I was wondering…”

 

“Master Potter has a command for Kreacher?”

 

“Yes. A command. I would like to procure as many of these ingredients on this list for us as possible. From Hogwarts or other safe locations. I do not want you to put yourself or others to any danger. Please do it by tonight or tomorrow. Also, try to remain inconspicuous and do not reveal to anyone where I am or where Snape is or that we are in the same location. Come back to us here, only when we are alone.”

 

Kreacher took the slip of parchment in his knobbly fingers. “Very well. Kreacher understands.”

 

“Thank you, Kreacher.”

 

The elderly House Elf inclined his head in a way that was not quite a bow. He made a twitchy gesture towards Snape, as though he was not sure whether to acknowledge the man or to denounce him as a half-blood. That brought memories that Harry did not feel inclined to confront at that moment. After a few seconds, Kreacher finally disappeared with a crack.

 

“So,” said Harry, “that went well. Kreacher will procure the ingredients you need. I will go purchase some food for us. You want anything?”

 

Snape leaned back in his chair. “Is the Blacks’ House Elf truly to be trusted?”

 

“Kreacher will take commands from me. He may not have liked anyone in the Order much, but that is all in the past now. He never really liked Voldemort. He only really cared for those who cared about him—only Regulus Black or his mother.” Harry felt like she was channelling Hermione, trying to say how kindness was the best way to treat Kreacher.

 

Snape remained silent for a long while as Harry checked her pockets for her wallet and phone. Then abruptly, he said, “I knew Regulus Black at Hogwarts. He did not strike me as a boy who would treat a House Elf with kindness.”

 

Harry paused; she had never heard Snape divulge anything of the sort. “Oh?”

 

But Snape did not seem inclined to say anything more; he reached into his own rucksack to pull out a cauldron and a small set of phials. Then he swept his wand in a circle, warding the area further against the vagaries of experimental potions.

 

It was as good a time as any to leave. In the lobby, Harry nodded briefly to the receptionist, turned around the corner, and immediately disguised herself with a glamour. If she were to run into any witches or wizards, it would not be difficult to detect the glamour, but much harder to remove it.

 

Harry ran a hand through her now-blonde hair. If only she could enjoy this stroll along the seaside promenade. She hated to admit it to herself, but she had not felt safe any time she was alone over the last two days. She could not help but preoccupy herself with Snape—the partner she had all but pressganged into helping her. It did not feel right or safe that she could not keep her eye on him. It was a strange sort of protectiveness.

 

The clouds were beginning to darken; the air smelled as though it would begin to rain soon. Harry turned away from the beach and towards the strip of shops. In the supermarket, she filled her basket with some fruit, supplies for sandwich making, and some canned, or otherwise preserved foods. Did it matter what Snape would want to eat? Harry did not remember ever seeing Snape eat very much. He had never stayed for the Order’s dinners—though that was likely because of the company rather than the food on offer.

 

Well, Snape would just have to deal with it.

 

Harry paid for the groceries with cash and made her way back towards the beach-front hotel. She stowed the food away in her backpack.

 

She was still walking when Hermione’s familiar otter Patronus appeared before her. She hurriedly ushered it into a dark side street.

 

“Hermione?”

 

Her best friend’s voice, when it came through, was urgent. “Proudfoot believes that you have abandoned your post at the Auror Office. I have told him about your break-up—sorry! But he thinks now that you’ve just gone away to deal with your _feelings_. The _case_ has been reassigned to Higgs. He is very interested in talking to Professor Snape and is escalating the situation.”

 

There was a pause as Hermione seemed to take a breath. “Take care of yourself Harry, please.” With that, the silvery otter turned in a circle and winked out of existence.

 

Adjusting the straps of her backpack, Harry removed the glamour and strode quickly back to the hotel.

 

Snape was where she had left him, sitting cross-legged on the beige carpet, and a cauldron bubbling before him. His hair hung in lank, greasy strands around his face as he bent over his work, controlling the stirring rod with small gestures of his wand.

 

Harry closed the door quietly behind her. She was bored again. She thanked Hermione silently for having lied to the Auror Office. They would no longer be looking for her if they believed her merely to be heartbroken (and unprofessional). That made her role here clearer. She would make sure that Snape completed the antidote, and then she would follow up on her intuition. Snape was not the only one who was doing research, and her research was paying off.

 

Feeling yet another pang of hunger, Harry pulled out the groceries and set them on the kitchen counter. She plucked out a small can of peaches she had just purchased, unpeeled the lid, and began to eat slices from the can with her hands.

 

“What are you doing Potter?”

 

“Uh, eating,” Harry said, her voice muffled by her eating. “You want some food?”

 

Snape flicked his wand again and cast a stabilising charm over the potion. “It’s complete.”

 

“You’ve completed the antidote?”

 

“No,” Snape said, “I’ve completed an experimental variation of the Wiggenweld Potion. I will need to test it—and I can’t do that without the ingredients your House Elf is sourcing.”

 

“Will it work?” Harry said anxiously.

 

“Are you so dense as to have forgotten what I have just told you?”

 

Harry persisted. “But theoretically—will it work?”

 

“Theory is more art than science,” Snape said. He climbed to his feet and came to look down at the pile of groceries. “Would you stop eating in that disgusting, unhygienic manner, Potter!”

 

Harry shrugged. “No cutlery in the hotel room.”

 

“What exactly are you doing here, Potter? You came into my home, told me that I am wanted because someone used my unpublished potion to poison three people, and then you have done nothing except sit there for the past two days.”

 

“You’re right. I’m sorry that I have not been completely forthcoming about my own suspicions in these cases. I told you most of what I know, but not everything. I have a very good idea of who it is that we are looking for… But as I said two days ago, I fear that he may have had support from others.”

 

Snape had picked an apple from the pile of groceries, and now he bit into its red flesh.

 

“I told you that I suspected one of your previous compatriots. I don’t reckon it’s one who dodged the Aurors though. Do you remember Barty Crouch?”

 

“How could I not,” Snape said.

 

“I think the person we’re looking for took a leaf out of Crouch’s book. Come look at these files I copied from the Ministry.” Harry set her canned peaches down, rinsing her hands under the tap and wiped them impatiently against her trousers. She motioned for Snape to sit down beside her on the carpet, a safe distance away from the completed potion, which she now saw was a shimmering and almost smoke-like in appearance.

 

“Here are the casefiles,” she said, fanning them out in a semicircle around them. The name of dozens of Death Eaters printed on black ink stared back at them. It did not escape her companion’s notice that his own name was on one of them.

 

Harry gestured to his file. “Yes, you would be a rather compelling suspect. That is why Higgs is determined to find you. There are some problems.” Harry felt the excited tone in her own voice. This was what she enjoyed about her work. Figuring things out. And eventually making things right.

 

“The Ministry is still insisting on uncertainty about whether there is a clear connection between the two cases. The break-in at the Ministry and the poisoning of Sue Li and the two investigators who were sent to her house. But I know that they must be connected. Because of the prophecy which Sue told me about several weeks ago that I mentioned to you. Now, I know you think that that it is, uh, stupid to believe in prophecy…”

 

“Do you forget who you are speaking to,” Snape said waspishly, “if I could doubt the power prophecies can have over one’s life, I would be very _stupid_ indeed.”

 

“Right. Right. Well, the contents of that prophecy. I have committed them to memory.” Harry cleared her throat:

 

“The Augurey approaches…

Another song is sung,

Another child is chosen.

When the song is heard,

When the child has spoken,

Time comes once more…

The Dark Lord rises once more, to remake the world in his image.”

 

Silence hung in the air between them for several moments when Harry finished her recitation.

 

“Potter, you understand why I do not attempt to interpret prophecy. I can see why Miss Li would be interested in such a prophecy… And believe it to be of importance.”

 

“Yes, and now you can see why I believe—and Higgs too—that we are looking for a supporter of Voldemort. What’s more, before she wrote to me, she told me she had removed the prophecy to a safe location. It was the prophecy that the intruder was looking for in the Ministry—and when he could not find it, he found Sue. Her house had not been ransacked… Perhaps she told him where the prophecy was before he poisoned her. We can assume that he possesses the prophecy however and wanted to get rid of the loose ends before disappearing.”

 

Snape frowned at the files yet again. “None of the Death Eaters would have the necessary skill to brew the potion. Of course, the clear assumption is that it was the accomplice that brewed the potion. In which case the person in question would be a well-trained potion-maker.”

 

“Yes. The accomplice is where, uh, I’m at a loss. You said that Voldemort’s support ran pretty deep—which is pretty unhelpful. But…” Harry tapped excitedly at the files, “Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange. Both dedicated supporters of Voldemort. Both sentenced to a life sentence in Azkaban.”

 

“The Lestrange family have been fervent devotees to the cause since Voldemort’s first rise. But Rabastan died six years into his sentence. It does not surprise me; Rabastan and his brother were always more rabid dog than human. Animals do not do well in captivity.”

 

“I appreciate the vivid metaphor, Snape, but animals have a certain animal cunning… And I believe that both brothers are still alive.”

 

Snape remained silent, the crease between his eyes deepening and making him seem more saturnine than ever.

 

“Won’t you ask me how? No of course not. Well, it was Barty Crouch that made me think of it. The only way to get out of Azkaban is in death. Of course, the Dementors could sense death—or the lack of it. But human guards can’t do that. They might be fooled.”

 

“So, Potter, it is your theory that Rabastan pretended to die with the help of his brother and was taken out of the prison.”

 

“You would know that Rabastan was the—the nice term is ‘less capable’—of the two brothers. I think Rabastan took Rodolphus’s place—and Rodolphus is the one who escaped and made contact with whoever is helping him.”

 

“In short, Potter, you are searching for Rodolphus Lestrange, who escaped an island prison with the aid of an unknown accomplice, and has been on the run since…?”

 

“November 2004.”

 

“Ten months. Ample time to put into motion whatever a Death Eater lout and an unknown pureblood supremacist would want to do. Which—if I dare interpret the prophecy—tells of the rise of the Dark Lord. Again.”

 

Put like that, the situation seemed pretty dire. But Harry grimaced and continued her summation of the situation. “There are remaining questions, of course. When and where was the prophecy made? What is the Augurey of the prophecy? Who is the child? How did the Lestrange brothers hear about the prophecy? How did they make contact with their accomplice?”

 

“Questions that would be unravelled if Rodolphus could be found. But the Lestrange brothers were used to sharing—victims, vices and a propensity for violence.”

 

“That’s a catchy way of putting it.” Harry grinned wryly. “But I’m on leave from the Auror Office, and if they are not discerning enough about those that get _out_ of the prison, then they are definitely very careful about who gets _in_.”

 

“I’m certain one of your Gryffindor gang would be _honoured_ to do what is needed for the Saviour of the Wizarding World.”

 

“I can send a message to Hermione. She can question Rabastan—with some sort of excuse—I’m sure she’ll think of something. Thank you, that is helpful, Snape.” Despite your sneering tone, Harry added silently. “But finding Rodolphus must be our first priority.”

 

“If your intention is to go on a manhunt, Potter, I must warn you that I am ill-suited to the task.”

 

“Ill-suited? Why?”

 

Snape fixed her with sneering gaze and gestured to the scars that his shirt collar did not quite cover.

 

“Oh. I thought…”

 

“I recovered yes,” Snape said drily, “but one imagines that there are side-effects to almost succumbing to the bite of an enormous venomous snake.”

 

Well how was she to know the after-effects of Nagini’s bite—she had not seen him for seven years and he seemed perfectly fine. She had even felt his body healing itself over those months. “What are… your symptoms then?”

 

“Exertion is painful, I tire easily, and I am particularly susceptible to any spells which cause pain. I would be a liability in a duel.” The words came out sharp-edged and bitter. It must have galled Snape to admit all this.

 

“I see.” Harry stared intently at her hands, held awkwardly in her lap.

 

“I agree to create the antidote—but no more. I have no desire to run after Rodolphus Lestrange—no matter what some prophecy says. No matter what you believe based on conjecture and circumstance,” Snape finally said.

 

“I understand… But—”

 

Harry did not know why it was important that Snape should agree to pursue Rodolphus Lestrange with her—only that it _was_ important. She could have easily set him up in one of several safe houses she knew, or even another hotel in a nondescript town, where he could research the antidote. Perhaps that would even be sensible. But she wanted him with her.

 

Even in their silences over the past two days, she had felt safer. Outside of Ron and Hermione, Harry could not think of another person she wanted with her more. She knew it would be dangerous. She did not know whether he had one accomplice or a network of agents working towards the restoration of Voldemort, but all of them would be out for her blood. Yet with Snape, she had felt like an eleven-year-old, mixing ingredients she did not quite understand in a cauldron she was hoping wouldn’t melt all over again; but she did not feel as though she needed to second guess herself. Harry could be rude or earnest or awkward, and Snape would sneer and roll his eyes.

 

And this was not just Harry’s fight, it was Snape’s fight too.

 

“Please, Snape! Don’t you _care_? The prophecy says that another child is chosen. You cared when the child of one woman was chosen. But you never learned to _really care_ , did you? You never changed. You’re still just the stupid child who joined—to use your words—a paramilitary organisation. Or worse, you’re no better than Rabastan and Rodolphus Lestrange!”

 

Almost as soon as the words were spoken, Harry regretted them.

 

Snape recoiled. His black eyes had shuttered immediately. Then he climbed to his feet, donned his coat, and slammed the door behind him on the way out.

 

* * *

 

 

Harry walked aimlessly through the streets of Exmouth. It was still late afternoon, and not quite dark.

 

She cast tracing spells but could detect no trace of Snape. He could have gone anywhere. There was no knowing where he might be. He could have Apparated anywhere in the country in the few moments between his leaving the room and Harry’s pursuit.

 

When Harry was angry, she liked to walk. It was a good way to get the adrenalin out, and it was a technique that had really helped her in the summer before fifth year, when she had had a particular need for it. Maybe Snape was the same. Maybe he too liked to walk when he was angry. Harry always thought he might have been more inclined towards sulking, but she really could do nothing else.

 

Harry thrust her hands violently into her pockets and bumped up against something hard. Right—the mobile phones. She dialled Snape’s number. Ringtone. And nothing.

 

He must have rejected the call. Well at least he had picked up on muggle technology pretty quickly.

 

“Urgh. Greasy git.”

 

A passer-by turned to look at her with censure and she muttered an apology, brushing the blonde hair of her glamour out of her face.

 

“Come on!” Harry ran through any number of spells in her head. All of them required either a trace to have been put on someone previously, or some sort of blood sacrifice that might be understood to be dark magic.

 

Snape had just told her that he did not do well with physical exertion—so he could not have run or moved particularly fast—if he stayed in the town. Maybe he was the kind of person to drink his anger away. The man did not particularly seem the type, though having been merely his student and unwitting ally, she had no idea what it was he had done in his personal life.

 

Nonetheless, somewhat dubiously, Harry headed towards the main street. There were a couple of pubs which were mostly empty when she peered in through the windows. In the first one, the bartender was wiping down glasses and chatting seemingly amiably to the few patrons at the counter. The second one however was completely empty—and Harry noticed a glass, shattered on the floorboards.

 

Immediately, she knew that something was amiss. She drew her wand, ready to defend herself against whatever would be coming her way. Casting a disillusionment charm over herself, she entered the pub. It was empty except for a seemingly unconscious man sprawled out on the floor, beside the smashed glass which she had noticed from the outside. The back door was open, and she heard a murmur of voices as she approached.

 

“—come with me, now.”

 

“Certainly not. I understand your suspicions, but surely you can understand that it is a highly _convenient_ occurrence.”

 

Harry recognised those voices. It did not surprise her then, when she saw Higgs at a standoff with Snape in the small laneway behind the pub.

 

“Please, Professor Snape. I have orders to take you to the Ministry for questioning. I do not want to be forced to apply force.” Higgs was doing an admirable job of keeping his voice calm. By protocol, Higgs should have already called for Ministry backup.

 

“There is no need to use force, Higgs. I do not plan to resist.” Snape’s voice was equally calm and quiet.

 

Higgs had drawn his wand, whilst Snape’s hands were held loosely at his sides. Harry calculated the trajectory of her spells from the angle, and then unhesitatingly shot a stunning spell at Higgs’s chest. He collapsed in a heap.

 

Snape whirled around.

 

“It’s me,” Harry said, lifting the disillusionment charm from her person.

 

“Is that the real Potter? What extracurricular class did you have with me in your fifth year?”

 

Of course—she still had her glamour on.

 

“Yes—it’s Harry Potter. And we had Remedial Potions together… To the great benefit of my magical education.” Harry bent over the quietly breathing body of Terence Higgs. “What should we do with Higgs? How did he find you?”

 

“Sheer luck, I assume,” Snape sneered. “Two Aurors just happened to be in the pub—they may have tracked our locations to this town. I managed to stun one of them—the unconscious man in the bar—but the other one Disapparated before I could stop him. And he must have summoned Higgs. I had just Obliviated the bartender and sent him to the store for some condiment or other when Higgs appeared.”

 

“And then I came upon you two. What a coincidence! I think I should Obliviate Higgs too.” The relief of finding Snape again had driven the memories of their argument to the back of Harry’s mind.

 

“Indeed, you should,” Snape said flatly. “And send him to London so that he does not question why he might be in this seaside village when he wakes up. I’ll do the same to the Auror in there.”

 

Harry watched Snape with fascination as she finished sending Higgs back to London via a banishment spell. The spell was non-specific, so there would be no telling where he ended up. She could only hope that he did not end up under the wheels of a double-decker bus.

 

Snape, however, was extracting the other Auror’s memories in familiar threads of silver liquid-gas. He was whispering something to the memories, manipulating them with some sort of magic. And then he was letting them fall back into the unconscious man. Harry was fascinated. She had never seen anyone do anything similar.

 

When the other man had also been banished, she said, “How did you do that?”

 

“Why should I tell you, Potter? The girl who speaks of ‘mind reading’.”

 

“That was years ago!” Harry said indignantly. “Anyway, I’m uh, glad that we ran into each other.”

 

Harry cringed. She made it seem as though they had been old acquaintances casually bumping into one another at the pub. As though she had not been scouring the streets hoping to find him. And then the contents of their argument flooded back.

 

“Look, uh, if they’ve somehow tracked us here, then it’s not safe to stay here anymore. We’ll need to leave. We’ll need to go back to the hotel?” Harry held out the question as a peace offering.

 

Snape seemed willing to take it. Though he evidently was still angry enough that he did not want to say anything to her. He cast a notice-me-not charm over the both of them and walked quickly out of the pub, and back in the direction of the beach—and their hotel.

 

Opening the door to their rooms, Harry gasped.

 

“Oh! Kreacher, you’ve brought us what I asked for.”

 

 

 


	6. Roads

September 2005

 

Kreacher nodded awkwardly at Harry and twitched in Snape’s direction.

 

“Kreacher has everything that Miss Harry Potter has asked for.” He clicked his fingers and a box of various plants, phials, and bottles appeared at Harry’s feet.

 

“You’ve got everything that was on the list?”

 

Another _click_ of the fingers, and the list drawn up in Snape’s crabbed hand appeared on top of the box.

 

“Can you check that you have everything you need, Professor Snape?”

 

Snape knelt down and looked quickly through the box, comparing it to his list. “Everything that I will need is here,” he said briskly.

 

“Thank you, Kreacher.”

 

“Is Kreacher free to leave?” The House Elf looked up at her with his huge eyes. There was trust there, Harry realised to her surprise, which reminded her of another pair of tennis ball green eyes. Then it hit her.

 

“Kreacher… I have a question, if you don’t mind.”

 

“Kreacher will answer Harry Potter’s questions.”

 

“Do you know anything about the Lestrange family? About the Lestrange brothers—Rodolphus and Rabastan?”

 

“The Lestrange family were great friends of the Kreacher’s mistress. The Lestranges are a pureblood family of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.”

 

“Yes,” Harry said impatiently, “I know that. Can you tell me of their houses or properties?”

 

There was a sharp intake of breath from beside her, as Snape glanced up sharply at the House Elf.

 

Kreacher squinted his eyes as though in memory, his bulbous nose wrinkled. “Kreacher’s mistress visited the Lestrange family at their country house in Kent often. Three House Elves used to work there. The Lestranges also had a house in London in Upper Brook Street. Master Regulus would spend time there with his cousins and friends. And there was one more. But Kreacher does not know where that is.”

 

The Ministry had known about the Lestrange family estate in Kent and their town house. Both had been inherited and were currently occupied by distant Lestrange cousins following the imprisonment of the Lestrange heirs. But a third property…

 

“Can you tell us more about this third house, Kreacher?”

 

“Kreacher does not know where it is.” The old Elf’s voice had taken on a tremulous and unsteady tone. “It was the night… The night when master Regulus disappeared—and Kreacher was forced to—forced to—”

 

“It’s okay,” Harry said, “I know...”

 

“Kreacher was taken to a house. It had the Lestrange crest on the doors and on the walls. And it was dark. Master Regulus took Kreacher by Apparition so Kreacher did not know where it was. And then—and then we went to the cave… The cold, cold place where master Regulus—”

 

Kreacher seemed to collapse a little, as he did whenever he spoke of Regulus Black.

 

“You walked to the cave from the house with Regulus, Kreacher?”

 

“Yes,” Kreacher whispered, “yes… That night... Master Regulus told Kreacher to come with him, and he Apparated to the house. But the house was empty, and he said it was safe. Then Kreacher and master walked to the cave. Where—”

 

Snape’s eyes were boring into Kreacher’s face, though the House Elf seemed not to notice the attention, caught up in his reminiscence as he was. Harry watched Kreacher quietly for a moment.

 

“Thank you again, Kreacher,” she said, “I’m very grateful for your information.”

 

Kreacher gave a jerky nod of his head and disappeared with a crack before Harry could say anything more.

 

“Snape… Have you thought of something?”

 

“The house that the Elf was speaking of—”

 

“You know where it is?” If it had been a place Regulus knew, then it would have likely been an old meeting place for Death Eaters.

 

“If it is the house which I recall…”

 

“Then we must leave immediately!”

 

“We?” Snape said, his lip curling.

 

“Oh, right.” Of course, Snape still did not want to come with her to look for Rodolphus Lestrange. Harry took a deep breath. “I’m sorry Snape. I—I saw your memories. I’ve seen—I think—the best of you. Well, and the worst. But earlier… I shouldn’t have compared you to the Lestrange brothers because you’re not anything like them.”

 

“No, Potter, you’re quite wrong.” Snape did not look at her. She could only see the harsh lines of his profile. “The Lestranges acted for a reason they care about. As did I. And as I will do so again.”

 

“Oh.” Harry smiled. Had her words convinced him? Or had Snape long since made up his mind? “Thank you. I mean—I’m glad you’ll help me. Then… We should leave immediately.”

 

“No,” Snape said, “have you forgotten the antidote?”

 

“How long will you need for the antidote?”

 

“I will require peace and quiet to work.” At Harry’s fierce look, he added, “Several days, at the very least.”

 

And there was no guarantee that Snape would find the antidote in the first attempt.

 

“We’ll stay for several days near the Lestrange house,” Harry said decisively, “We had better leave within the hour.”

 

If Snape was irritated by Harry’s orders, he did not give any sign of it.

 

Harry retreated to her bedroom with a murmured excuse. She needed to contact Hermione. Harry felt the rectangular shape of her mobile phone in her pocket and wondered if Hermione would pick up her landline. It was worth a try—the Ministry did not monitor anything so mundane as muggle channels of communication. Nor could they. Likely no one in the Ministry of Magic even understood how mobile phone signals worked.

 

The phone rang for a long time before Harry heard a breathless “Hello” on the other end of the line.

 

“Hermione,” she said, “it’s me—Harry.”

 

“Harry! But why are you calling me… Oh, silly question, of course. Yes, Ron, it is Harry on the phone. Wait until she’s said what she wants to tell me.”

 

“Hermione, Higgs managed to find Snape. It may have been a pure coincidence but likely they tracked us to the town where we are staying.”

 

“How? But never mind—I’ve got to tell you—”

 

“I don’t know, Hermione,” Harry said, “But we don’t have a lot of time. I believe I know who carried out the break-in at the Ministry. Rodolphus Lestrange. His brother faked his death and Rodolphus escaped from Azkaban. He’s done it twice before, so now that the Dementors are gone, he would have no trouble.”

 

“Rodolphus,” Hermione muttered, “yes that would make sense.”

 

“Snape and I are going to track him down,” Harry said.

 

“Snape—Harry, the _Prophet_ has been putting out some rumours.”

 

“Let me guess—Rita Skeeter?”

 

“Not just Rita,” Hermione said, “other so-called reporters too. They’re kicking up a huge fuss—making insinuations—you understand. Suffice to say that should anyone see Professor Snape, and they have been reading _The Daily Prophet_ , they would probably think him a Death Eater who fooled everyone and that now he’s fled to carry out some diabolical plan to bring Voldemort back.”

 

“I see,” Harry said icily.

 

“Ron and I were very angry when we saw it,” a pause in which Ron must have pulled a face, and then Hermione said, “well, it made _me_ angry.”

 

Harry bit back a smile. She could imagine her best friends’ expressions—Ron’s perpetual grimace of distaste when it came to Snape, and Hermione’s reproving frown.

 

“I uh—well, I’ve called because I need you to speak to Rabastan, Hermione.”

 

“Rabastan who is right now pretending to be his brother. Right. Of course.”

 

“I know you’re the only one who can possibly get the permission to go to…”

 

“Yes,” Hermione said, “I’ll do it.”

 

“Thank you! I know I can always trust you, Hermione. I had better go.”

 

“I’ll call,” Hermione said, “Take care of yourself, Harry.”

 

* * *

 

 

They decamped from Exmouth within the hour. Harry had consulted her map and found a small coastal village near the cave where the young Tom Riddle might have stayed with the other children from the orphanage when they had visited. Snape agreed that it was likely that the house he remembered was located near this village. He remembered the grass outside—like the type of grass that grew near sandy beaches. And he remembered the soft smell of the sea.

 

The Lestrange brothers had invited the boys in their years to their house. Like their father, they aggressively recruited for Voldemort amongst their peers. A holiday house, they had called it. But it had been dark and damp and entirely unsuited to a holiday of any kind. The Lestrange crest had been the only kind of decoration in the house. The house was situated too far from the beach, and not near enough to the village, so they had spent most of their time indoors, drinking firewhisky, practicing curses on whatever unfortunate creatures came across their paths, and waxing lyrical about their futures under the Dark Lord’s regime.

 

Snape had told Harry that he had only been to the house once, at the age of seventeen. He had been to the house one time, when he was young and still pained by the loss of his oldest and best friend. Harry wondered if he had been glad for the sense of belonging that being in that house had brought him. Harry remembered the first time she had set foot in the Burrow in the summer before second year. It had been intoxicating—that sense of being surrounded by people she could call friends. That there were people who did not despise her for her existence.

 

But maybe the others had thought Snape beneath them, for being a half-blood. Maybe they saw that he would help them, and that had been enough, for the moment.

 

They found themselves standing in the main street of the village at close to midnight. The cool autumn night was making Harry shiver.

 

“There must be an inn around here somewhere,” Harry said.

 

“There is a pub,” Snape said, pointing somewhere further down the street, “They should have some rooms.”

 

The publican was shutting up as they approached him, and Harry waved.

 

“Please, stop, please!” Harry called. “We need lodgings for the night.”

 

“There’re no rooms here,” the man said gruffly, “but there’s a motel down the way. You’ll see it.” With that, he slammed the door, and Harry heard the padlock being fastened on the inside.

 

“Great. Just great.” She was shivering again.

 

Snape scowled and pointed his wand in her direction. Harry felt a rush of warmth flow over her. “Are you a witch? Or are you just a glutton for suffering? As though everyone hailing you as the saviour of the wizarding world were not enough, you will not deign to put on a jumper.”

 

Harry let the insults bounce off her. “Thanks, Snape,” she said, her teeth definitely not chattering.

 

They did recognise the motel when they came to it. It was a dingy brick building surrounded by a large car park, built obviously for tourists who had never appeared. The reception desk was occupied by a bored-looking teenager who was studiously chewing gum.

 

She hardly looked up with Harry and Snape entered. “Yes?”

 

“We’d like a suite with two rooms please,” Harry said.

 

“Yeah sure,” the girl leaned back in her chair with a creak and plucked a set of keys from the wall. “Credit card?”

 

“Wait,” Snape interjected, “do you take cash?”

 

“Yep,” the girl said, as uninterested as ever.

 

Snape took several crumpled bills from his pocket and pressed them smooth on the counter, taking the keys and handing one to Harry.

 

“Why cash?”

 

“Muggle law enforcement are able to track those credit cards, are they not?”

 

“Yes,” Harry said, “but you don’t think that the Ministry is capable of doing so? The Auror Office has no _idea_ how credit cards work.”

 

“Perhaps you should not be so quick to assume,” Snape said blandly.

 

“Well,” Harry said, “if _you_ know better…”

 

Snape ignored this and unlocked the door to their rooms. It was a much smaller set of rooms than their previous place of accommodation, made up of a main room with one bed, a dingy bathroom, and an adjoining tiny room with another bed.

 

“Wards?”

 

“Some, already done,” Harry said, “I’m sure you’d like to correct my work though. Sorry, don’t mean to snap, I’m just a little tired.”

 

Snape fixed contemplative eyes on her for a few seconds. “I will finish the wards. You may go to bed.”

 

Snape was using his teacher voice, Harry realised, the voice that must have told so many students throughout the years that they were out after curfew, that they should return to their dormitories, and that they had detention for the next three hundred years.

 

“Yes, Professor,” Harry said. She took the smaller room and crawled into the bed. It smelled suspiciously musty, but she was too tired to care. She kicked off her shoes and crawled under the covers fully dressed.

 

Harry had a mass of confusing dreams in which she wandered aimlessly around the halls of Hogwarts, and occasionally saw the silhouettes of people she thought she knew. But when she approached them, they changed and became like strangers.

 

* * *

 

 

Hermione was let into the interview room by two rather burley looking guards in grey robes. The crossing to the island by boat had been particularly rocky and Hermione was still experiencing some of the ill-effects of seasickness. She could not tell whether the bile in the back of her throat was due to the journey, or the thought of meeting a man who had wanted to murder everyone like her—and had tried to do so at every opportunity.

 

“There are charms in the room which will detect any distress,” the taller guard said, “You have twenty minutes.”

 

“Thank you,” Hermione said, nervousness making her voice terse.

 

Rabastan Lestrange was a thin and bloodless man. His prison uniform hung from his blade-like shoulders and narrow hips. He sat behind a translucent magical barrier, facing Hermione seated in a wooden chair. Rabastan and his brother were born almost exactly a year apart, but they might as well have been twins. Both had pale skin, sunken eyes set into a narrow face, and black hair. Rabastan’s hair was just beginning to become streaked with grey.

 

He sat expressionless, not looking up when Hermione entered the room.

 

“Good afternoon, Mr Lestrange,” Hermione said, hoping that her voice did not waver. “May I call you Rabastan?”

 

With that, the man looked up at Hermione, something unreadable in his brown eyes.

 

“You may,” the man said, sounding as though he had not spoken in a very long time. “You may call me John or James or Thomas.”

 

“Rabastan,” Hermione said insistently, “that is _your name_ isn’t it? The guards _think_ you are Rodolphus, but you are not, are you?”

 

He was silent, staring at her with his strangely calm eyes.

 

Hermione decided to try another question. “Do you know who I am, Rabastan? Do you remember me? I’m Hermione Granger. My name is familiar to you, isn’t it? You know why I’m here to speak to you, don’t you?” Hermione took a small breath, which she hoped that he would not notice. “Where is your brother, Rabastan?”

 

The prisoner blinked slowly and licked his lips in a way that reminded Hermione of a lizard waiting for an insect to fly into the path of its tongue.

 

“He is in a better place,” Rabastan Lestrange finally said with a smile that held anything but joy.

 

“What is he doing in that better place, Rabastan?”

 

“He is making the world better. He is cleansing it of filth like you.”

 

“How is he going to do that?”

 

“You know how, you filthy mudblood. When the Augurey cries, men know that their deaths are soon to follow.” Rabastan’s smile widened.

 

Hermione felt her blood go cold. _The Augurey_. There was no doubt then that the Lestrange brothers knew of the prophecy. They were acting on it. They must know what it meant. They may even know who the child was.

 

“Tell me about the Augurey, Rabastan.”

 

“The Augurey.” Rabastan’s smile widened even further, revealing a role of yellowing teeth. “My brother is in a better place. In the place he _should_ be. Free of scum like you.”

 

“Tell me about the Augurey.”

 

“Just you wait! The Augurey will be singing. And then you know what is to come.”

 

“So, the Augurey is not singing yet?”

 

“My brother will make sure that it is singing. Soon enough.”

 

He leaned forward in his chair, his eyes still fixed upon Hermione’s face.

 

“He will _make_ sure? So, he is not dead, your brother? Who is helping him?”

 

“Where my brother has gone—the good place—there are many people who believe in the right things. Not like you, foolish girl.”

 

“Your brother, Rodolphus, how is he going to bring Voldemort back?”

 

“Back… _Back_? The Dark Lord was never gone. My brother is in a better place. Filthy mudblood.” The thin man rocked back and forth in his chair. It was as though a dam had broken inside of Rabastan. He began to speak more and more rapidly, his words becoming less and less coherent. “The Dark Lord was never gone. Fool. Fools and traitors all of you. And all of _them_. Those who surrendered are no better than you. They shall weep. The Dark Lord is among us even now. His blood is our blood. His blood is amongst us. He shall never die.”

 

“Can you tell me how he survived, Rabastan?” Hermione said, desperate to keep the man talking.

 

“When the Augurey cries,” he whispered again, “men know that their deaths are soon to follow. Can you hear its song now? Soon. Soon.”

 

With that Rabastan fell silent. He slumped back into the chair, his long, tangled hair hanging over his face. His hands twitched reflexively in his lap, but it seemed as though he had long forgotten that anyone else was there.

 

Hermione glanced down at her watch. Fifteen minutes had passed. This visit had been a failure. Rabastan had not told her anything of his brother and of where he might have been and what their plan was. All she had found out was that they knew of the prophecy somehow and were very likely interested in possessing the prophecy.

 

“I think I’m done here,” Hermione said. The door opened and the guard let her out.

 

Several hours later, back in her office in London after another rocky sea crossing, Hermione received the unpleasant news in the person of her assistant.

 

“I have a letter from, uh, Azkaban.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

Hermione waited until her assistant departed before slitting open the envelope. The missive which waited for her in the envelope shook her, but was not all together unexpected.

 

Rabastan Lestrange had been found dead in his cell.

 

* * *

 

 

Rodolphus Lestrange looked over the field of dry grass and towards where he knew the sea to be. He could hear the unceasing murmurs of the waves even now. It was a familiar sound. He wondered if his brother could hear the same sound from his prison cell. If nothing else, they surely looked upon the same sliver of the moon.

 

The house was dilapidated when he had first found it again. The shutters had been broken, and the door hanging half-way off the hinges. The wind had whistled through gaps in the walls.

 

It had been the woman who had contacted him when he was in Azkaban. She had had her own reasons for doing so. The letter had arrived one afternoon and rekindled the spark of something that had been dormant inside him ever since the Dark Lord had died. He had felt directionless and angry, full of a simmering resentment that refused to die down.

 

Rodolphus had spent many summers here in this small house in the middle of nowhere. There had been something rather strange about the place, something whispering and echoing. His father had built this house, and he had chosen the location for some reason that he would not tell his sons. There had been rumours in their household, of protecting something precious and secret, but no one knew the truth except for Rodolphus’s father.

 

Rodolphus thought of his father—and how he had died. He had died in Azkaban, driven mad by the Dementors there. He had not lived to see his sons suffer the same fate. By then, his emaciated corpse had already been buried by his wife, in the Lestrange family plot, on their family estate. And both his sons had been there to witness his interment. Afterwards, the brothers had commiserated by carrying out a particularly successful raid against their enemies.

 

The enemies were manifold, and they were reproducing themselves grotesquely. _Mudbloods_ spreading their contamination. Polluting the pure wizarding world. Their enemies thought themselves victorious _now_. But they did not realise that _his cause_ was merely like an ember, covered with a thin layer of ash. It would be ready to ignite with only a little encouragement.

 

Rodolphus was a clever man, but he also knew when it suited him best to defer to a greater intellect.

 

He found that greater intellect in his _friend_. She had departed from Britain when Voldemort had first come to conflict with the Ministry. It had been a matter of family, back then. And now, it was a matter of family _again_.

 

It was his friend who had told him of how he could do what was needed and achieve what he desired. Rodolphus needed her—he did not _need_ to like her. He hated her for her absence, her treacherous cowardice. Still, he needed her.

 

She was clever, and devious, and thirsting for the revenge she could not have the first time around. Most of all, she had the Augurey.

 

When the Augurey cries, men know their deaths are soon to follow.

 

* * *

 

 

“It’s here.” Harry pushed her curls away from her face. The wind was bitter and tasted like the sea. She squinted against the slanting dawn light. They had been walking from the village since before the sun had come up.

 

“There’s residue of dark magic here,” Snape said. He was a few paces behind her as they climbed up the sloping path.

 

“Yes,” Harry said, feeling the chill, metallic tang of something _wrong_ in the air.

 

The both of them were wrapped up in heavy coats and scarves against the unseasonably cold autumn air. The house was, as Snape had recalled, some distance away from the town in which they were staying. They could see it now, a ramshackle cottage set on a small hill. An overgrown garden of tangled weeds surrounding the house, almost entirely obscuring the low stone fence.

 

“This is the place,” Snape said, as they finally reached space in the stone wall where there might have once been a gate. “You see Lestrange crest above the door? Of course, it was likely much more ostentatious—and hidden to muggle eyes. Whatever wards there once were, they have long dissipated.”

 

Harry nodded thoughtfully. Her _Homenum Revelio_ showed that there was no one in their vicinity.

 

Behind her, she sensed Snape’s tension. She almost made the mistake of reaching back to pat him on the shoulder.

 

“Just stay calm,” she said, unable to think of anything more reassuring. Harry sensed, rather than saw, Snape’s disdainful expression.

 

“Proceed as you normally would, Auror Potter,” Snape said.

 

Harry did proceed as she normally would, approaching the house carefully and sweeping each of the rooms. It was entirely empty. It was also dilapidated, yet full of clear signs of human inhabitation.

 

Harry reconvened with Snape in the sitting room. “Do you notice…”

 

“…a clear lack of dust in some places compared to others,” Snape said, nodding. “Yes, there was clearly someone here recently. Sleeping in this room.” Snape pointed to a crumpled blanket half hidden under the couch.

 

“Where is he now? Will he be back?”

 

Snape muttered a low incantation. “Last spell he cast used blood. Likely a dark concealment spell from the amount of blood. Lestrange was always quite good at those. Five days old, I would say.”

 

Harry raised an eyebrow. “You can tell that?”

 

“Certainly,” Snape said, once again resuming his teaching voice, “ _if_ you had paid attention in your classes, Potter, you would know that dark magic always leaves residues that can be detected.”

 

“You can teach me the spell you just used, then?”

 

Snape did not respond to that. He had stilled, looking past Harry’s face, his eyes narrowed in a way that Harry recalled from Hogwarts. It was the expression he wore when he suspected that there had been wrongdoing and had a good idea of who was responsible.

 

He strode past Harry and stopped at the fireplace. There was a great deal of ash in the fireplace, and buried beneath it, a tiny sliver of yellow. Snape reached down, riffled through the ash, and plucked out a singed piece of parchment, about the size of a galleon. Harry came to kneel beside the fireplace. She glanced up at Snape, eyebrows raised.

 

“So?”

 

“A clue,” Snape said, holding up the slip of parchment to the light. Harry could see now that it might have been part of an envelope.

 

“ _Mme. R_ ,” she read, and on the second line “ _67 Rue de T…_ You really think this is related to Rodolphus?”

 

“A great number of papers were burned here quite recently,” Snape said, rubbing the ash between his fingers. He waved his wand over the pile of ashes, lifting them into the air in a floating ball. There were a few small fragments of parchment which separated from the ashes and fell to the floor. The whole ball of ashes then gave a weak shimmer before collapsing back into the grate. “As you see, unable to be reconstructed.”

 

Harry gave a small sigh and turned her attention to the small pieces of parchment on the floor.

 

“ _I will…_ ” she read aloud, “ _the… De…_ Something. No this is useless. Does the Lestrange family have connections in France? Or elsewhere on the Continent?”

 

“Close ones—not for many generations,” Snape said, “but his accomplice…”

 

“You think they would send letters in the muggle post to each other? Oh but of course… Prisoners in Azkaban can only receive letters—but they must have the return address. I can ask to check the record. It _may be_ a dead end.”

 

Harry ran a hand through her unruly hair, glancing up again at Snape. He was looking quite impassive, turning the slip of charred parchment over and over in his pale fingers. His hair, longer than Harry remembered it, hung in his face. Perhaps if he were more gaunt-looking he would have resembled Rodolphus or Rabastan Lestrange. But Harry found that she could not think of him in the same category as the Lestrange brothers.

 

“ _Madame R_ ,” Harry said with a sigh, “living at _67 Rue de T…_ I know what must be done.”

 

 

 


	7. Absences

September 2005

 

“I don’t know what you were thinking! Just running off to what? _Deal_ with your _emotions_? Right in the middle of a serious investigation. You’re lucky that I don’t demote you for this!”

 

Harry stared quite impassively at Proudfoot, who was leaning forward in his chair and glaring at her with temper in his eyes.

 

“I apologise, sir, I wasn’t sure what overtook me. I just felt the need to take some time to myself for several days.” Harry took a deep breath. “It was just the pressures recently—and with, uh, my personal relationship.”

 

Proudfoot also sighed. “Potter, I’m not insensitive to my staff’s needs,” he said, “but I wish you had given me warning. Especially when we had been closing in on our suspects in the case of the poisoning at Sue Li’s house.”

 

“I’m sorry too, sir,” Harry said, glancing down in a way that she hoped seemed contrite rather than dissembling, “Can you tell me where we are at with the investigation?”  


“Oh, very well— _now_ you’re interested in the investigation. You didn’t care for it when you ran off. It was a good thing that Higgs was there to take control of the investigation. I tell you that the Minister was _very_ unhappy about the whole matter.”

 

It was _not_ a very good thing that Higgs had taken up the investigation in her absence. He was far too likely to be diligent in his task—and yet not possessed of enough information to see things as Harry did. It was a shame that Kingsley had been made disappointed in her, but that was not the most pressing or important thing.

 

“I wish you would tell the Minister that I _am_ sorry, for being irresponsible, if nothing else.”

 

“If nothing else…” Proudfoot scoffed. “Well, you’ll be glad to know that Higgs has been tailing Snape—our primary suspect at present. Snape has fled his home, which you will see is very suspicious. I know you were an advocate for him…”

 

Snape’s reputation remained bad. His changes at Hogwarts had not set him in good stead with those in the magic world who were of a more conservative bent—as Proudfoot was. There were many who whispered that he had kept out of prison, as the Malfoys had done during the first war, through fortunate connections and a great deal of dissembling. Harry knew that Proudfoot was one of the people who thought so.

 

As long as Snape had remained as Hogwarts Headmaster, within the protection offered by its ancient walls, he had been unimpeachable. But as soon as he had handed over the metaphorical keys to Headmistress McGonagall, the air of protection had evaporated. People feared him still; still thought of him as their cruel teacher (a not unfair assessment); or Voldemort’s right-hand man in Hogwarts.

 

Harry was also certain that Snape’s typically unpleasant manner and unpleasant appearance did not help matters. It was all too easy to believe him the monster of a young person’s nightmares. Or a boggart.

 

These thoughts were not spoken aloud. Instead, Harry said, “It doesn’t matter. We should investigate the matter thoroughly—as we normally would.”

 

“Of course,” Proudfoot said, “but he has gone missing, and it is of the greatest importance that we should try and contact him as soon as possible. Perhaps you should speak to Higgs about this matter. I’m sure he’ll be happy to catch you up.”

 

It was a clear dismissal from Proudfoot. Harry understood when to make a graceful exit. She promised that she would seek Higgs out as soon as possible and bid Proudfoot goodbye.

 

She did speak to Higgs, but he did not tell her anything that she did not already knew. How she knew was a matter where the less said the better. Harry did not let Higgs know what she knew. But she _was_ glad that the encounter between them in the pub had not resulted in serious injury. Higgs knew that something had happened upon waking up with a raging headache on an unfamiliar London street. But his memory was not enlightening in any way.

 

Harry made noises of sympathy, nodding emphatically at Higgs’s frustration exclamations.

 

After having gone through all Higgs’s completely circumstantial evidence, Harry promised that he could remain the lead in the case. Snape was also being considered the prime suspect for the break in at the Ministry, which was certainly related. Higgs also pointed to a pile of folders.

 

“Other suspects,” he said, and invited her to look through the files with him.

 

She did so until about four o’clock in the afternoon, trying in vain to steer him towards the _right_ conclusions. But Higgs lingered quite hopelessly on unimportant matters.

 

At five o’clock, having skipped lunch, Harry announced that she was leaving the office for the day. Higgs made a snide remark about her having missing time to make up for, but Harry paid him no heed. She headed straight to Hermione and Ron’s London apartment.

 

Ron, who had been expecting her, opened the door and gave her a swift hug. “Hermione’s going to be a bit late. Come in. How was the first day back?”

 

Harry rolled her eyes. “I’m starving, have you got any food in the house?”

 

Ron opened a packet of crisps which he tipped into a bowl. “Hermione doesn’t really approve of snacks. A bit of a hangover from her parents.”

 

“Good thing you do the grocery shop then,” Harry said, reaching into the bowl.

 

Ron grinned, then looked Harry over carefully. “Really mate, how are you going?”

 

“I’ve only been gone less than a week. And not really because of heartbreak. But not that—well you know.” Ron nodded in understanding. “I just want to get to the bottom of this. I want to find Rodolphus. I want to know what he’s planning to do. And I definitely want to find this _woman_.”

 

“I had a thought,” Ron said, leaning forward, “now that you’re back at the Ministry, you could use some of its international connections.”

 

“That’s just what we were thinking. That was partially why I came back instead of, you know, going rogue, uh well even more. Legitimately going rogue. If only the Ministry had been better at diplomacy… I suppose Hermione is working on that too.”

 

“That Granger—she’s got herself spread too thin.” Ron took on a rather overly casual tone, “So… _we_ you say?”

 

“Oh, come on, Ron,” Harry said with a smile, “if you want to ask me about Snape then say so.”

 

“How’s the greasy git then?”

 

“I wish you wouldn’t call him that.”

 

“You’re as bad as Hermione, honestly. _Just_ because he helped defeat Voldemort, that doesn’t mean he’s stopped being a bastard.”

 

“Well, actually,” Harry said, “he was pretty restrained. He was helpful, even.”

 

“He had to be _helpful_ , didn’t he though, or else he’d be the prime suspect.”

 

“He still is the prime suspect. In the Ministry’s investigation, anyway.”

 

“But I bet he was an insulting berk during all of it.”

 

“Well, yes. The mean teacher act definitely wasn’t an act.” But there had been a bit more—flexibility maybe—in Snape. When they were at Hogwarts he had always seemed as though he was stretched so tight that he would snap at any minute.

 

At that moment, there was the sound of a key turning in the lock, and a few seconds letter, Hermione entered the sitting room, her coat and bag still hanging from her arm.

 

“Oh good,” she said, upon seeing the two of them, “you’re both here already. I have some things to tell you. I’ve picked up some curries for us.”

 

Striding past them, Hermione set down a bag full of takeaway containers on the dining room table. Ron glanced over at Harry with shrug and followed Hermione to the table, pressing a soft kiss to her cheek.

 

Harry got to her feet too and layered several secrecy spells over the apartment, making sure that their conversation could not be easily observed. She also checked in on her pocket Sneakoscope, which was thankfully free from any signs which caused alarm.

 

“Harry,” Ron said, “hurry up or I’m going to eat your favourites.”

 

“Don’t you dare,” Harry said, grabbing a stack of plates and cutlery from the kitchen.

 

The three of them sat down to the meal with relish. Harry was still fairly starving from having skipped lunch, Ron still had the appetite of an adolescent, and Hermione had been craving all sorts of things since she had become pregnant.

 

Harry’s best friends had informed her quite matter-of-factly about their condition upon Harry’s reappearance in London the previous day. They had found out while Harry had been on her sojourn but did not feel that it was the right time to tell her. Hermione had added in a rather resigned way that she supposed that they would now have to be married—although she was quite indifferent to the antiquated idea, she knew that Ron had long wished to do so.

 

Harry had been overjoyed and had hugged her friends tightly. The baby was due in March next year; Hermione and Ron were beginning to look around for a larger apartment in London, or a house somewhere further from the city, and otherwise just scrambling to get things ready for their child. There didn’t seem to be enough time in the day.

 

Harry glanced around the small dining table and could not help but smile. She felt utterly safe and content with these two people who knew her and loved her best in the world. She could not wait until another little soul joined her two best friends. Perhaps she should have been jealous at the thought that her friends will cease being hers alone—and maybe that time would come—but for now she did feel as though she lacked anything more, rather that her life was more complete than she could have ever imagined as an orphaned child.

 

“Let’s focus on the matter at hand,” Hermione said, her clear voice cutting through Harry’s reverie. “What information do we have to go on?”

 

“Not much,” Harry said dully. “She’s likely in France or another French-speaking country. Likely on the Continent. I know that the archives in the Ministry have some information on family trees.”

 

Hermione smiled and pulled out a thick stack of papers. “I thought of that already. I copied the files.”

 

Ron flicked open the first page of the files, to reveal a complicated morass of lines and miniscule text. “I’ve seen something like this before,” he said, “at Aunt Muriel’s house. There’s a spell that.. I think I remember it.”

 

Ron waved his wand and muttered an incantation unfamiliar to Harry. With a start, she realised that the page had started to glow softly. Then the whole mass of lines lifted itself up and resolved into a shining, floating diagram in the air. The small lines of text became small busts of men and women.

 

“There’s the Lestrange siblings,” Hermione said, pointing to the faces that had been imprinted in her mind, ever since that visit to Azkaban.

 

“It’s a tangle,” Harry said, “they’ve intermarried with every single one of the other pureblood families in England.”

 

“Married into the Lestranges… But we knew that already.” Hermione paced around the family tree. “This only goes back a few generations but…”

 

Harry thought she knew what Hermione was thinking. Almost every family of the so-called Sacred Twenty-Eight were here—even a Weasley about four generations back.

 

“There’s the Malfoys,” Harry said, “I’m sure Draco Malfoy was always bragging about having a holiday house in France. The wanker.” This drew a small smile out of Hermione and Ron.

 

“The Ministry’s got the Malfoys under pretty strict surveillance, considering how easily Lucius avoided a serious sentence in Azkaban. They’ve not left the country in years. Oh, and from what I heard, since Draco married Astoria Greengrass, he’s really improved. Astoria’s pregnant too.”

 

Ron stared at Hermione for a beat. “You really have been keeping tabs on Malfoy.”

 

“Oh please, Ron,” Hermione said, rolling her eyes, “it’s part of the job.”

 

“Wait a minute—if Malfoy’s wife is pregnant—that means—”

 

“Yes, our children will likely be classmates at Hogwarts.”

 

“Merlin!” Ron scowled, “Our child had better beat the Malfoy brat on every exam _and_ in Quidditch.”

 

Harry repressed a smile as Hermione said quite calmly that she thought that Ron would certainly make sure of that.

 

“Okay, so if not the Malfoys, then?”

 

Ron gestured to one section of the family tree, showing several elderly men and women. “They’ve got really close connections to the Rowles. Dad used to say that the Rowles had spread all over Europe, spreading all their supremacist rubbish.”

 

“Rowle was one of Voldemort’s supporters from this first war,” Harry said, “and his son Thorfinn Rowle is in Azkaban now. What do we know about his family? I’ve got his file at Grimmauld Place. The letter said _Mme. R_ , so what about his female relatives?”

 

“I’m not sure,” said Hermione. “I think he had a sister. His mother may also be alive.”

 

The three of them contemplated the family tree for a little while longer. But Rowle was the connection that seemed the most promising. Harry promised to go back to her house and consult her files on Rowle.

 

She felt sleep prickle the back of her eyelids. What a mess this was. What a frustrating tangle of dead ends and fragments that refused to add up to a whole.

 

Harry slumped into her chair, pushing Rowle’s file away from her. That’s when her mobile phone rang. She glanced at the caller’s number and immediately picked up.

 

“Where are you?”

 

“Good evening to you too,” came the familiar voice on the other end of the line.

 

“You disappeared!”

 

“I believe, Potter, we had agreed on a course of action. I did _not_ realise you required maudlin—no doubt tearful—farewells.” Harry sensed Snape’s sneer even through the telephone.

 

“I was worried, okay? I didn’t know if you’d—”

 

“I would suggest that you stop there, Potter. As you hear, I am well. And I have indeed done what we agreed to.”

 

“Oh,” Harry said, “you’re in France.”

 

“Yes Potter, and I may remind you that international calls are not inexpensive, so please apprise me of the state of your investigations.”

 

Resenting Snape’s own verbosity, Harry did apprise him of the state of her investigations. And she did so with the fewest number of syllables she could. She told him of the family tree, and the likely connection to the Rowle family.

 

“Your otherwise fairly uninspired friend Mr Weasley is quite right. The Rowle family does have connections throughout Europe. I do believe there is a branch in France who have a long-standing connection with the Vincent family.”

 

“I’ve given you the details I have. You will make enquiries?”

 

“I will indeed,” Snape said smoothly. “I will contact you.”

 

With that, the line went dead. Harry stretched her arms above her head and yawned involuntarily. She really did have to sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

Snape had travelled the muggle way from England to France. That meant an uncomfortable bus ride to London and a moderately better journey in a train to Paris. Snape had long learned that the best way to avoid other magical folk was to travel in the most mundane of ways. Witches and wizards seemed to eschew anything deemed overtly muggle and always insisted on modifications and tricks. He, on the other hand, appreciated the efficiency of buses and trains that ran to a timetable and that had predetermined stops. (And, importantly, had the good sense not to be lurching about all the bloody time for no other reason than the aesthetic.)

 

Moreover, people did not stare so. In his black coat and trousers, his rucksack slung over his shoulders, he was just a regular commuter. He might have just come from work or maybe he was going to visit relatives. He usually did not indulge in fits of imagination, but he wondered what it would have been like if he had been a muggle. Would he had ever left Cokeworth? He certainly would not have become friends with Lily. That might have been a blessing.

 

How odd it was to think that the scummy boy from the worst part of a dying industrial town had gone to an elite school and had eventually become the Headmaster of said school. It could have been the makings of a success story. Instead, it tasted like ashes in his mouth. Instead, Snape felt nothing but relief that it was all behind him. Instead, he longed for nothing more than to return to the quiet cottage which had the promising beginnings of a home.

 

Bloody Potter again. Snape silently damned her.

 

Snape knew from his infancy that he was not made for a happy life. His mother had been the first to tell him so. And when he was older, he no longer needed to be told. He could see the truth of it in the faces of those around him. He would settle now for a quiet life. A life in the country with his books, his garden, and his potions. It would suit him. He would be alone. But it was futile to think he could be otherwise.

 

Now, he was being self-pitying again. He detested pity—particularly when it was directed towards himself. He would go on.

 

It had been many years since Snape had been in France. The first time had been at the behest of Voldemort, when he had been just eighteen. There had been some lacky who came to realise that Voldemort’s organisation was not just some school yard gang. The lacky, a Ravenclaw about three years Snape’s senior at Hogwarts, had fled to France and hoped to disappear. Snape and Rodolphus Lestrange had been sent in pursuit—to make a lesson of him.

 

Back then, Rodolphus’s rat cunning and fluent French had worked to their benefit. Both the legacy of having grown up in a vicious, pureblood household. The two of them had hunted down the poor boy. Snape had disarmed and bound him. Rodolphus wanted to play with his food. Snape manage to convince him that casting the Dark Mark and dragging the body to a public street to be discovered would suffice. And Rodolphus had slashed the boy’s throat with one vicious application of Snape’s own spell.

 

How much of that boy’s blood was on his hands, and how much on Rodolphus’s?

 

Rodolphus had also wanted to indulge in some revelry whilst the two of them were there. Snape did not join him in that. He felt ill at ease with his ignorance of the language—and back then, he had not yet outgrown his teenage gawkiness. Instead, he spent his days wondering around the _arrondissement_ where their hotel was located, and then, feeling more adventurous, travelling to monuments and cathedrals where he blended in with other tourists.

 

In all, it had been a pleasant week—if he did not think of the boy’s staring eyes—if he thought instead of the light falling through the windows of the Saint-Chapelle and the blue and gold of its ceiling. He had felt cleansed then, if just for a moment. He had felt as though he might put everything behind him—all the ignominy of his birth, his humiliations and failures at Hogwarts, his utter lack of social connections which had made any foray into any sort of wizarding career seem impossible.

 

The Dark Lord had offered a way out of all of that… He, seemingly out of all the adults in Snape’s life, had seen the worth of Snape’s talents. The Dark Lord had offered sponsorship, fronting the substantial cost of a Potions Mastery happily, he said, because he had the utter _confidence_ that Snape would succeed. In return, Severus proffered his support for _their cause_.

 

Of course, he did not then know what the cost of that support would be.

 

Snape was thrown from his reverie upon arriving at his destination. The hotel he had stayed at more than twenty years ago. It had been Lestrange who had taken them there all those years ago. This had been the return address on the letters the Lestrange brothers had received in Azkaban.

 

Snape presented the hotel staff with a small conjured photograph of Lestrange. “My brother,” he said, “I thought he told me to meet him here.”

 

“No sir, I have not seen him. I think I would remember someone so striking. I have worked here for over ten years, sir.”

 

The man at the front desk spoke fluent English and smiled persistently at Snape. His cursory, non-verbal Legilimancy detected no lying. Of course, the man’s mind could have been magically tampered with, which would explain the unrelenting smiling.

 

“Very well,” Snape said, “may I have the key to my room?”

 

Snape set down his bag as soon as he entered the room. The décor had changed over the last twenty-odd years. He would need to be careful here. It was more than likely that this was a hotel that catered specifically to magical guests, in which case the building would be surrounded by layers of spells. This intuition was proven right as soon as Snape cast his own wards. Anti-Apparition did not seem to be one of the protections however, so with a quick turn, he disappeared from the room.

 

* * *

 

 

Rodolphus paced around the room impatiently. His footsteps echoed across the bare floorboards.

 

His companion, a woman in her seventies with iron grey hair and matching grey eyes, regarded him silently. The older witch was dressed in elegant blue robes that flattered her white skin and long, slender limbs. She was reclining on one of two leather armchairs in the room—the only furniture apart from the copious number of portraits which covered the walls.

 

“You are certain that she will come here,” Rodolphus said.

 

When the witch spoke, her accent was English and clipped. “She will. It is only a matter of when.”

 

“And we are ready?”

 

“Do you not feel ready? I do not like this outcome. It is not the way I preferred that we accomplish our aims, but—”

 

“But we can use it to our benefit.”

 

“It must be so. I did not desire that this moment come so soon. I did not want any _open_ confrontation. It is not how I would have done it.” There was no reproach in her voice, only a matter-of-fact coolness.

 

The woman crossed her legs at the ankles and allowed her head to rest against the back of her armchair. The ceiling was cracked. There was no doubt that the house needed repairs.

 

 Rodolphus felt a surge of anger, which he tried to tamper. “You planned for it though.”

 

“Why, of course. It would be unwise to leave everything to fate.” She stared impassively past Rodolphus and out of the large glass windows. “The cause means as much to me as to you.”

 

The old family house had been built in the fashion of the late-nineteenth century, but since the family’s fortunes had dwindled, it had been allowed to fall into neglect. It never failed to cause her consternation.

 

“You were here all along. You did not show your face in England for decades.” Anger had creeped into Rodolphus’s voice.

 

“And I was correct for not having done so. Given, well…”

 

“How dare you! When you refused even to—”

 

“Quiet. Your Dark Lord lost his way. He always cared more for his own quest of immortality. The cause fell by the wayside. He turned inwards and lost sight of our goals. The preservation of magic itself. Instead, he corrupted it.” Her grey eyes were boring into his. A thin smile had curled around her mouth. “Horcruxes, really? An unworthy thing. There would have been many like me. Those waiting for a leader of the cause to make himself known and to join him. But he squandered everything—making himself monstrous, making himself repulsive.”

 

Rodolphus raised his hand, as though the gesture would halt the flow of the witch’s words. Instead, she merely curled her fingers around the armrests and leaned forward.

 

“Your Dark Lord made enemies where he could have made allies. There would have been many, as in the early years, who would prefer to turn a blind eye to him and continue living their comfortable lives. There are many who believe as we do—not only in Britain, but here in France, in Germany, in Spain, in all of Europe and further afield. Your Dark Lord could have raised a movement. Instead, he retreated into his twisted experiments and the false promise of so-called dark magic.”

 

“Stop! The Dark Lord is a great wizard. He would have cleansed Britain of the filthy mudbloods!”

 

“Oh, I see that I have shocked you, boy. You thought me as mindlessly devoted as you are?”

 

“I thought you loyal to the cause!”

 

“And I am. But you cannot expect that I should have love for your master.” This was said with a sneer in her voice.

 

Rodolphus looked away from her face. “I see.”

 

“You do indeed,” she said.

 

Rodolphus had resumed his pacing. “Where’s the girl?”

 

“Likely moping in her room with that silly bird of hers,” she said, turning her gaze away from Rodolphus.

 

“I want to see her.”

 

“She shows no interest in your prophecy, you know. She’s a dull little thing—and no aptitude at all. Not much resembling your wife either.”

 

“I’d still like to speak to her.”

 

She waved her hand dismissively. “Do as you will.”

 

It had begun to rain outside, a soft drizzle falling against the windows.

 

The occupants of the house did not look out and see the solitary figure seated alone in the café at the opposite corner of the street.

 

 


	8. Homes

September 2005

 

“I have seen Rodolphus.”

 

“At one of the locations we discussed?”

 

“Yes. You had better ready yourself—and inform those at the Ministry who are not complete dunderheads.”

 

“You think he’ll be moving soon?”

 

“No, it is unlikely they’ll be moving.”

 

“ _They_?”

 

“His accomplice. She has the look of a Rowle. She must be one to own the house.”

 

“Was there anyone else there?”

 

“Three of them in total. I did not see the third person.”

 

“I’ll be there as quickly as I can. Tell me where I can meet you.” Harry ended the call.

 

She should have been feeling pleased. Joint efforts and research had turned up Rodolphus Lestrange’s location. And yet, Harry had an unquiet feeling about everything. It had all seemed wrong somehow. The puzzle pieces still did not fit together as they ought to have done. But it was pointless worrying now. She pushed all disquieting thoughts to the back of her mind, pulling a sheet of parchment and a quill towards her.

 

The letter she wrote to Hermione and Ron was short and to the point. It was no longer their responsibility to follow her into danger—but of course, they would. They would worry and follow her no matter what she told them.

 

The letter she wrote to Terrence Higgs was more explanatory. She explained to him the discoveries that she had made—about Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange, about his being in France. She all but begged that he should join her there to apprehend Lestrange. She did not like the feeling of abasement that the letter made her feel, but it was necessary.

 

And she was an Auror after all. It behoved her to stay within the law.

 

Having despatched these letters by way of her trusted owl, Harry dressed for comfort and duelling. Her bag had already been packed. Upon her return to London, she had acquired a second (admittedly inferior) wand which she now stowed on her person. Her trusted holly and phoenix feather wand she kept in its usual holster on her arm. Finally, Harry coaxed her unruly black her into a knot at the back of her head and stuck it in place with a spell that Hermione had taught her.

 

Snape met her at the Paris metro station closest to the hotel he was staying at. He seemed calm, dressed in black from head to toe, his hair hanging over his shoulders. Not only did Snape fit in amongst the muggles, he even seemed kind of cool, cutting a thin, sharp figure. Harry would never say so to him of course, it would be extremely embarrassing, not to mention that he would likely deride her use of muggle slang and say something withering about her intellect—or lack thereof.

 

“Potter, very timely of you.”

 

“I Apparated over the Channel. Do you know how windy it gets? I still feel sick.”

 

“I hope you did not eat very much before you left,” he said drily.

 

“No,” she said, “but now I’m starving.”

 

“Luckily for you, our destination is a rather good café.”

 

Snape had led them to a small side street devoid of people. He held out his arm and she gripped his forearm tightly as he Apparated the both of them. Harry remembered to cast a glamour over both of them before they re-emerged into a main street.

 

The café was quite good. Harry ordered soup and bread whilst Snape let his coffee grow cold on the table. But the food was not the only attraction. The greater draw of the café was its excellent view of a neoclassical house over the road.

 

The house had clearly been built for a wealthy family. It was four storeys tall, with large windows in the front. There had been protective spells laid over the house, some which made it so that muggle eyes would glance over it. Wizards would see it, but they would feel a sort of aversion towards approaching unless they had particular business there. Harry and Snape could see it because they did have business there.

 

Even to them however, the house seemed to have come a long way since its heyday. Harry applied a charm on her glasses which allowed her to see behind her, so that it was not obvious that she was looking where no muggle would have been looking. The spell also allowed her to magnify the images which she saw.

 

“The woman,” she said, “I do recognise her from the family tree. A sister of Lestrange’s mother.”

 

“It must be she who made the potion. But I cannot remember anyone named Rowle amongst the Potioneers.”

 

“Maybe she used her married name. She is in the salon by herself… No one else is at any of the windows.”

 

Snape made a small sound at the back of his throat, but otherwise made no reply.

 

“Do you have any idea of the layout of the house?”

 

“There is a back door leading into the kitchen. There is a basement underneath the house. The main salon, clearly. And I believe there are several bedrooms on the upper floors. I do not have the floorplans obviously.”

 

“Hm,” Harry said, “it would be useful to know the floorplan. Pity there’s a privacy spell on the entire building.”

 

“Pity indeed. When did you ask that Higgs should meet you?”

 

“Tomorrow, seven o’clock in the morning.”

 

“And you are certain that he will come?”

 

“I hope so,” Harry said absently, her eyes still fixed on the house across the street. “I shall have to take them on alone otherwise.”

 

She did not notice Snape’s eyes sharpen at her words, until he said, abruptly, “Potter, I take it you understand that I cannot partake in your planned physical confrontation do you not?”

 

“Yes, I understand—what you told me before about... I don’t believe you’ll be a liability—as you said, sir—but I plan to go in by myself if Higgs does not arrive at the appointed time with reinforcements. That’s why it’d be good to have an idea of the floorplan. I’m not certain that Higgs will arrive in time, but I don’t think he can resist coming, if only to see me proven wrong.”

 

“And what will you do if you find yourself outmatched in the fight?”

“I have an emergency Portkey.” Harry had been caught up in enough sticky situations at this point that she knew to be equipped with a whole host of escape plans. “What are you going to do?”

 

“I will remain here, overseeing the front door, observing the upper windows. And my escape will not be a concern of yours,” Snape said, firmly.

 

Harry did not like this declaration, but she knew it would be useless to say so.

 

“Well then,” she said, finally wrenching her eyes away from the house, “we have only to rest for the night and wait for the morning.”

 

Harry leaned over the table and drank down Snape’s cold, untouched coffee in one long gulp.

 

* * *

 

 

The morning dawned, pink and blue against the windows.

 

Harry opened her eyes and stretched out her limbs, uncurling herself from the couch. It was the last day of September and all along the avenue, the trees were red and brown and gold.

 

Snape was already dressed, sitting in an armchair by the door. He met her eyes, his face unreadable, cast into shadows by the weak sunlight. A flash of self-consciousness passed over her, but she shook it aside and went into the bathroom.

 

How thin and haggard her face looked. Harry splashed cold water over her face and brushed her teeth perfunctorily. She felt as though it was the morning before an exam which she hadn’t studied for. It was ridiculous to feel this way. She had gone after many dark wizards and she had never felt like this.

 

This was no different, Harry tried to remind herself.

 

Seven o’clock came and went with no indication of any new arrivals. Harry and Snape were seated at the usual café, their faces disguised.

 

Harry drained her cup of coffee, wincing at her scorched tongue. She glanced again at her watch. It would not do to tarry much longer—it was better to catch the occupants of the house when they were in bed, not ready for a visitor.

 

“I’m going to go.”

 

The face which Snape wore raised its eyebrows.

 

“I was prepared for this. You’ll need to watch out for me from here. Send word if Higgs or others arrive.”

 

“You will not reconsider this foolhardy venture?” Snape said, his voice cool.

 

“I will not.”

 

The house was silent. Harry’s footsteps echoed on the bare floorboards. She had gotten past the wards on the back door with remarkable ease. _Hominem revelio_ had shown that there were three human signatures in the house, as expected. She had already scanned the bottom floor, comprised of a kitchen, storerooms, and a laundry, and it was empty.

 

The second floor seemed to be comprised of a series of salons. It was dominated by one rather large room framed on all sides with portraits of long-dead witches and wizards. The portraits moved—and their mouths moved—but no sound was emitted.

 

It was then that she heard it—a low, soft moaning sound. The sound reminded Harry of death and mourning. It was an augurey—the Augurey? Harry remembered the words of the prophecy—and the words Hermione had told her that Rabastan had said… _When the Augurey cries, men know that their deaths are soon to follow…_

 

Harry felt a sudden coldness wash over her, and the whole fabric of the room rippled.

 

“Who are you?” said a small girl seated on the lone couch in the centre of the room. Her voice was raspy, as though she was not used to speaking.

 

The girl was sweet-looking, with wide eyes and glossy, dark hair that fell in waves around her pointed face. She was holding in her hands a single crystal orb.

 

“My name is Harry.” She glanced around. There was a trap here—she had triggered it. And yet… There was only this girl here and no one else.

 

Harry tightened her grip on her wand.

 

“Harry,” the girl said, “my name is Delphini. Have you seen my bird? He’s crying. It means it’s going to rain soon, you know?”

 

“No, I haven’t seen your bird. I’ve heard him too.”

 

“Oh,” the girl said, and returned her gaze to the orb in her lap. She gave it a stroke. “It was speaking to me, you know. But now it doesn’t want to say anything.”

 

“The crystal ball was speaking to you?”

 

All of a sudden, the world seemed to tilt on its axis. Another wave of cold washed over Harry and she witnessed the image of the girl shimmer and fade from existence. In her place, there sat an elderly woman dressed in fine robes of sky blue and silver trim.

 

“Miss Potter, isn’t it,” the witch said. “You look so much better without your foolish glamour.”

 

“You must be Rowle,” Harry said, refusing to be intimidated, as bewildered as she was.

 

“I see you still do not know who I am, Miss Potter. No matter. You shall not have much time to enjoy the knowledge.”

 

With that rather ominous statement, a bolt of violet light shot out from behind Rowle.

 

Harry just managed to duck with the aid of her long-honed reflexes. She threw herself to the floor and shot a Stunning Spell at her attacker.

 

Rowle merely crossed her legs on the couch, seeming rather bored of the whole ordeal. “Miss Potter, you must see that there can be no escape now. You did not think that we would anticipate you?”

 

“Where is the girl?”

 

“Oh, Potter, we heard about your silly, sentimental attachments. The girl is not in _this_ room, of course.”

 

“Was that conversation real?”

 

Rowle threw back her head and laughed. Harry detected real mirth in her face. “What is to say what is real? Is it real that you are here at out mercy? Mr Lestrange has no mercy for you, let me warn you.”

 

“I want to see the girl,” Harry said stubbornly, trying to stall for time while she tried to figure out what had happened and what she could do. Of course, she should have long activated her emergency portkey…

 

“Do you hear that, Lestrange? Potter wants to see the girl. Maybe you’re not the only one foolishly attached to that girl.”

 

Rowle pushed her grey hair behind her ears. There was something strangely familiar in the action, something that Harry could not quite put her finger on.

 

“Enough of this.” Lestrange’s voice was low and rasping; there was no doubt about the anger evident in his tone.

 

Almost before he had finished speaking, the woman had shot a binding spell at Harry. She just managed to throw up a silent Shield Charm and returned with her own hex. The witch, with more agility that Harry thought possible, dived down to the floor, deflecting Harry’s spell.

 

“If that’s the way you both want it,” Rowle snarled. She banished the couch, leaving the room bare.

 

Lestrange sprang up behind Harry and threw a slew of hexes at her head. Harry just managed to dodge them, but she could not dodge a well-aimed hex from Rowle, which shattered her Shield Charm and made her hand sting sharply. She only just managed to hang onto her wand.

 

“I’m finally going to finish what was started twenty-five years ago, Potter!” Rodolphus Lestrange leered at her, a ghastly smile spreading across his face. His skin was deathly pale; his hair long and lanky. He resembled a skull—maybe even the skull that had faded from his arm.

 

“You’ve been counting my birthdays,” Harry said, “very thoughtful of you. Thanks!”

 

Harry recast a _Protego_ and shot several other hexes wildly at Rowle and Lestrange, all the while backing slowly into one corner of the room.

 

Lestrange let out a frustrated groan. “There’s no one here to save you now! _Avada kedavra_ ,” he shouted.

 

The jet of green light shot past Harry’s ear and hit the wall behind her in a shower of plaster and rendered canvas.

 

Canvas. Harry felt her back against the wall.

 

“You can’t get away now!”

 

“You’re going to kill the chit now?” Rowle spun her wand lazily in her fingers. “Do make this more interesting…”

 

“I’m trying to,” Harry groaned, “ _Wingardium leviosa_!” Harry turned her wand towards the portraits on the walls. They floated in the air for a second, before spinning wildly and shooting across the room towards Rowle and Lestrange.

 

Lestrange was knocked flat on his back. Harry shot a quick _Expelliarmus_ , sending his wand flying, and bound him with a hex.

 

Rowle had blasted aside the portraits but she too was distracted. But Harry’s binding spell missed her shoulder by a millimetre. That was enough. Rowle advanced and cast her own binding spell on Harry: she did not miss.

 

The older witch cast the semi-conscious Lestrange, who was moving feebly on the floor, a look of contempt.

 

“It’s just you and me, Miss Potter.” She smiled, thoroughly unpleasant, “Do you know who I am?”

 

“Kill me then; it won’t bring Voldemort back… No matter what the prophecy says.”

 

But this only brought another amused smile to the older witch’s face. “You think I care about the prophecy? You think I’m a _Death Eater_? No. You are wrong on both counts. Rodolphus Lestrange required my help… And I wanted revenge— _on my family_.”

 

A chill creeped down Harry’s back. “What do you mean, family?”

 

“Why, I am your family. Do you not remember your grandmother?”

 

“My grandmother?” Harry repeated numbly.

 

“Did you not know that the name of your grandmother was Euphemia Rowle before she became a Potter? My, my. How men make us _their_ creatures.”

 

The witch was reaching out with her long-fingered hand, pushing Harry’s hair gently behind her ears. It was an echo of her earlier action. And suddenly, Harry understood why it had been familiar. Because it was a habit of hers too.

 

“No,” Harry said quietly. “It doesn’t matter. You’ve never been my family.”

 

Harry felt a sharp warmth in her fingers. Well, when the time came, her practice in wandless had not gone to waste, it seemed. The bonds dissolved around her. With her wand firmly in her hand once more, Harry repulsed Euphemia Rowle and bound her tightly with a hex.

 

It was not Rowle and Lestrange who were the objects of Harry’s focus now. She could barely bring herself to look at Rowle.

 

But no, it was the look in the young girl’s eyes when she had held the prophecy orb to her chest that returned again to the forefront of Harry’s mind. She rushed out of the large room the way she had come and up the stairs. The augurey gave another wistful cry somewhere above her. Harry followed the sound of the bird.

 

“Delphini? Delphini?” Harry scanned the room, waving her wand around the room and casting _Finite incantatem_.

 

“So, Rowle was right,” said a low voice from behind her, “she said you’d go after the girl. _Expelliarmus_!”

 

Harry’s wand spun out of her hand in a desperate arc and into a waiting hand.

 

She whirled around. “You!”

 

Lestrange gave a bark of laughter at the incredulity in her voice. “Did you think we did not plan for you?”

 

The augurey was in a cage, set on a spindly table by the window. Its voice was soft and plaintive.

 

The Death Eater bared his forearms so that she could see the faded scar where there was once a skull and snake brand.

 

“Oh no, but we knew that you would look for the little girl. The girl is under Polyjuice and has been put under the Imperius Curse. I do hope your curse did not hit her too badly. We will need her, after all.” Lestrange laughed, a sharp, ugly sound. “I will take great delight in killing you, Potter.”

 

“No, you won’t,” said another voice.

 

Why did it sound so familiar? It would not be… But Harry had no time to think before she was pushed to the ground and a blast of bright green light rushed past the place where she had been.

 

“It gets better and better,” Lestrange panted, reeling off several more spells that were easily blocked, “The traitor has deigned to join us.”

 

“Shut the fuck up, Lestrange. You always wanted to talk too much. _Accio_ Potter’s wand. _Stupefy_!”

 

Lestrange evaded or blocked Snape’s other, non-verbal spells. Snape caught Harry’s wand in his left hand and dropped it into her grasp. She was still crouched, carefully watching Lestrange’s curses.

 

She looked up and saw Snape’s face. It was pinched and white. She did not know the nature of his affliction beyond what he had told her. The two men would have looked similar if not for the expression in their faces.

 

Her wand restored to her, Harry pressed upon Lestrange.

 

“The worst ones always live, don’t they Snape,” Lestrange spat. He was getting desperate now, firing curses wildly.

 

One rather weak pain hex slipped past Snape’s shield and struck him in the upper leg. Snape gave a strange convulsion, his face contorted with pain.

 

“But you’re not so high and mighty now, are you? You little half-blood upstart… Got what you deserved.”

 

“Shut up, Lestrange,” said Harry this time. “You really do talk too much.”

 

“Potter!”

 

Harry ducked just in time to avoid the curse from Euphemia Rowle, who had evidently freed herself from her predicament downstairs.

 

Rowle and Lestrange circled them, as Snape stood at Harry’s back. The four of them were duelling in earnest now. Lestrange and Rowle had both previously been weakened, but their knowledge of dark spells was as good as any of the opponents Harry had met. Snape was limping slightly. Harry noticed his heavy breathing and his pale, pained face.

 

Another spell slipped passed their shields, this time a cutting curse from Rowle. Not _Sectumsempra_ , thankfully. Blood gushed from Snape’s wand arm.

 

“Fuck,” Snape muttered, the only sign of his injury.

 

Then, everything seemed to happen at once.

 

There came loud knocking from the first floor. Harry’s focus disrupted, she missed Rowle’s hastily shouted curse—stronger than her previous attacks. She did not recognise the incantation, but Snape must have, because he seized her by the shoulders, blocking the curse with his own body. Snape gave another convulsive shudder and fell unconscious, slipping to the floor.

 

“Oh God!”

 

The door burst open again and there stood Higgs with two other Aurors Harry recognised. But Rowle and Lestrange had already anticipated what had been about to happen. Rowle drew out a small pebble from the pocket of her robes. Lestrange ran across the room to her, clutching onto her arm. Then she shouted. The two of them seemed to vanish into space, taken away by the Portkey.

 

Harry sank to her knees and drove her fist into the floor.

 

“Damn it!”

 

* * *

 

 

November 2005

 

The halls of St. Mungo’s had long become familiar to her in her time as an Auror. But she had never really liked the place. In fact, she still often thought of the time when she had seen Neville, his grandmother, and his parents in the long-stay ward, and a sense of weariness and sadness would come over her. She knew Neville’s parents had both died peacefully several years ago; the whole remainder of the Order of the Phoenix had been at their funeral.

 

She truly did dislike the place, but since Delphini had needed a check-up and a slew of childhood vaccinations, she had needed to pay St. Mungo’s a visit. Hermione had agreed to accompany the two of them, since she also had regular appointments with a Healer. Harry tried to forget the other reason she had come to St. Mungo’s.

 

The last few times she had come to see him, Snape had been asleep, or pretended to be. Or they had exchanged awkward sentences until Snape shut her out. It was like—almost like—what had happened seven years ago. Why did it have to be so hard? Snape never discouraged her visits. He was just the taciturn interlocutor that he always was, sneering occasionally and making his usual caustic remarks. But when she had tried to broach the issue of what happened—the reason he had to recover in St. Mungo’s—something in him would seem to become cold, shut off behind a wall.

 

Harry brought Delphi into the small examination room where she was met by a Healer in lime green robes. She did not recognise the older woman. Apart from a single raised eyebrow at Delphi’s name on her chart, the Healer treated both of them in a brisk but kind manner. Delphi only frowned and gritted her small teeth when the Healer administered the vaccinations. She answered in a small voice when the Healer asked about the kinds of food she ate and how she usually spent her time whilst casting unobtrusive diagnostic spells. Afterward, the Healer allowed her to pick a sweet from a bowl.

 

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Harry said cheerily to the child.

 

But Delphi was still not all together used to Harry, and only made a small, indeterminate gesture with her head.

 

The Ministry, and Proudfoot, had not known what to do with Delphini, the child of the Dark Lord and his most loyal follower. Her identity was already known by too many people and would inevitably become public knowledge at some point. Harry had not been able to stop thinking of Delphini as the child she had sought to protect. The child that did not have to be what a prophecy deemed that she should be.

 

In a fit of what could only be called her impulsive penchant for saving people, she had convinced Proudfoot that she would make a suitable temporary guardian for the child, until they could capture Rodolphus Lestrange and Euphemia Rowle.

 

Delphi was very shy, having never been around many other people, and she became overwhelmed easily. But she was only seven years old and Harry was certain that she would be able to adapt with the right amount of care. Harry had often thought about having her own child, but outside of babysitting little Teddy Lupin occasionally, she had very little experience with real life human children. But she promised that this particular prophecy child would not have her own Aunt Petunia.

 

Delphi slid down from the examination table as the Healer conjured up a list of potions.

 

“I would suggest that you have these on hand, Miss Potter. They are often required by growing children.”

 

“Oh, right, of course. Thank you.”

 

The Healer produced another sheet of parchment, which occasionally gave a gold-tinged shimmer.

 

“These are Miss Delphini’s records. You should keep them in a safe place and bring them to the next appointment—which will be in six months.”

 

“Right, sure,” Harry said again.

 

“Good luck, Miss Potter.” With that, the Healer swept out of the room.

 

“Come on, Delphi, shall we see if Hermione is done with her appointment?”

 

But they needed not look for Hermione, she met them in the corridor, a beaming smile across her face.

 

“I take it everything went well?”

 

“Oh yes,” Hermione said, “the baby and I are both perfectly healthy. Ron will be upset that he couldn’t come but there will be plenty more appointments. And how was your visit to the Healer, Delphi?”

 

“Okay,” she replied in a tiny murmur.

 

“Will your visit be improved with a visit to the tea room? I believe they have scones, which I know you’re fond of?”

 

The girl looked up at Hermione and gave a nod.

 

“Alright,” Hermione turned to Harry, “why don’t you come with me, Delphi, Harry will join us in the tea room in a few minutes.”

 

Delphi gave another small nod and tentatively took Hermione’s outstretched hand.

 

Snape could be found in the Spell Damage Ward, in a small room where the long-stay patients recovered and were overseen by a Healer who patrolled regularly. The Healer currently in charge had gone away for lunch, so Harry managed to slip in without any trouble. Of course, she would’ve been let in without incident…

 

Snape occupied the bed at the end of the room, closest to the windows. He was propped up against the headboard, flicking through a journal of some sort. He wore reading glasses that perched near the end of his long nose. He twirled a muggle ballpoint pen in one slender hand, and occasionally made notes on the page. Harry watched him for several minutes before he glanced up to see her.

 

When he saw her standing there, he snatched the wire-rimmed glasses from his face, folding them into his shirt pocket.

 

“Potter, what are you doing here again?”

 

“I came with Hermione and Delphini…”

 

“Very well. I believe congratulations are due to Miss Granger—or is it Mrs Weasley?”

 

“Oh uh, I think they’ll be married in the new year. Of course, Hermione and Ron are going to hyphenate their names.”

 

“Is that so,” Snape sneered.

 

“Well I will let them know you congratulate them.”

 

Snape smirked as he sat down his journal in his lap. “I did not say that _I_ congratulate them. Merely that they are due congratulations. I could not care a whit that another mewling brat is due to come into the world—much less another Weasley brat.”

 

“I won’t pass _that_ message along then,” Harry said drily.

 

“Do what you will,” Snape said dismissively.

 

“I wanted to talk with you.”

 

“You are already speaking to me, Potter. As you have done several times previous, without my encouragement.”

 

“So,” Harry said, “how are you doing? Are you feeling better?”

 

“If I was better, I would no longer be confined to this uninspiring ward.”

 

“Well, uh, is there anything you want me to do? Take—take care of your house for example?”

 

“No Potter, even if you were to be _capable_ , I would not have you take care of my house,” Snape said.

 

“But your garden! Or your pets—do you have any pets?” Harry had stopped fully knowing what she was saying. Snape was scowling, heavy lines between his brows, and yet Harry felt… As though she merely wanted to smooth those lines away.

 

“No, Potter, do not go near my house. You and your enthusiastic Auror colleagues have done enough to improve the appearance of the place.”

 

Snape’s voice was dripping with sarcasm, but Harry did not find it unpleasant. His deliberately formal, almost intentionally snobbish intonation had a sense of familiarity to Harry—even a sense of reassurance.

 

Harry remembered how she used to hate that voice, used as it was to make disparaging remarks and issue detentions to her and her friends. But she could hardly summon up the anger she used to feel now. When Sirius had died, she had felt so much anger and hatred that she had burned with it; Snape had been a convenient target, being his horrible self.

 

Yet in the end of sixth year… When that sinking feeling of betrayal had come over her, in the moment Snape’s _Avada kedavra_ had flung Dumbledore over the parapet, Harry had realised that she had trusted him after all. He had been a petty man and a cruel teacher—but somehow, she had still trusted him. In the end… Perhaps that trust had never dissipated. She had recognised the image of his Patronus as something pure and beautiful and she had followed it to what could have been her death.

 

“Potter, have you lost your wits completely?”

 

Harry blinked and started. She must have zoned out. “So, are the Healers doing a good job?”

 

Snape rolled his eyes slightly. “Did you have something of interest to say, or did you come merely to make inane chit chat?”

 

Harry blushed suddenly and furiously. Ducking her head so that he would not see her expression she mumbled, “I just wanted to thank you for what you did. I know you don’t want to talk about it…”

 

“There is nothing to say. It seems to have escaped you, but—”

 

“I _know_. Alright, I know. You don’t want to talk about anything; you wish I would go away…” Harry took a deep breath, “Are you going to continue working on a cure for Sue and the others?”

 

Snape frowned, a rather bemused expression on his face. “What is the matter with you? What a ridiculous outburst! I shall develop a potion for the potion that _I_ created.”

 

“Thank you, yes. I mean—the Ministry will be grateful for it,” Harry said. She glanced up into Snape’s face, to find the curious expression there fixed.

 

Harry thought of the boy in Snape’s memories again, the strange intensity of his black gaze that had not changed. His gaze was intense now, but not in the way that Harry suddenly felt that she desired. And she _did_ desire that he would look at her—not like a puzzle that he had to solve, as a sum of her parts—but as—as what? Something whole, something complete in herself.

 

“Oh God.” Harry did not realise that she had spoken the words aloud until Snape’s voice cut through her thoughts.

 

“Potter, you are acting even more incoherent than usual.”

 

“I know,” Harry said, misery suffusing her voice, “I know. I’ve got to go. I’ve got to see how Hermione and Delphi are… I’ll see you again. Soon?”

 

Harry stood abruptly, the chair clattering loudly against the flagstones. She was certain that Snape did not understand the reason for her oddness and awkwardness. He stared at her from the bed, his face as ugly as ever, his dark hair brushing over his shoulders.

 

“Goodbye,” she said, hastily retreating. She was every bit as foolish as Snape had always told her.

 


	9. Returns

December 2005

 

Christmas at the Burrow was always a chaotic time. The house was bursting with guests crammed into every square inch of space, as Molly and Arthur had decided that they would have a reunion of the Order of the Phoenix at the Burrow seven years after the Final Battle. In the time since the Final Battle, the Weasley family had grown. It was as higgledy-piggledy as the Burrow, but also as comforting and familiar. Harry had spent every Christmas of the last seven years with the Weasley family, except one.

 

Harry still remembered the first Christmas after the Final Battle at Hogwarts. She had never felt closer to the soul of the castle—if a castle could be said to have a soul. There had been a warmth inside the castle, despite the cold and snow outside, that seemed as though it rose from the ancient earth and seeped into every one of the castle’s inhabitants.

 

Students gathered in Hogwarts that first Christmas after the war. Even the students who had not been present at the Final Battle. Even students who had graduated many years ago. Even the parents and grandparents of Hogwarts students. To his credit, it was Snape who had opened the doors to each and every person who might have called the castle home. On Hogwarts grounds, at least, there had been no recriminations, no guilt and no blame.

 

There had been a great feast, the hall filled to capacity with everyone who was there. The head table had been banished so that the four house tables stretched to fill the entire Great Hall. But no one had been sitting in their houses. Harry remembered being squashed next to Ernie Macmillan’s mother on one side and Professor Slughorn on the other. The House Elves had truly outdone themselves that time.

 

Even after the platters of food had disappeared, people had not left the Great Hall. Instead, there had been talking, and games of chess and cards, and singing, until the House Elves had made everyone tea and coffee.

 

Thinking of that Christmas could not help but remind Harry of Snape. He had avoided her on that occasion too, refusing to speak to her. It had not escaped her notice that day that he had not stayed after the feast while others lingered with friends old and new but seemed to disappear to the Headmaster’s quarters alone.

 

Snape had been released from St. Mungo’s three weeks ago. She only knew because she had gone there one day only to be told that he had left—and no, he had not left a message to be passed on to any visitors. Molly had told Harry rather deliberately that she had invited Professor Snape—but only through Professor McGonagall, as she did not know his home address.

 

Harry had visited him several times whilst he had been in St. Mungo’s. She had been the reason he was there, after all. But all they ever did was make stilted conversation. And well, those conversations hadn’t gone particularly well. Yet oddly, she wished that he would make an appearance at the Christmas reunion. She even had half a mind to drop by his cottage.

 

“Harry,” Ginny’s voice threw Harry from her thoughts, “mum wants you to look over the food while we clean up the dining room and set up the tree.”

 

“Oh, right,” Harry said distractedly, “of course, I’ll follow you.”

 

“Mum knows that you’re the only one who can be trusted not to burn everything,” Ginny said, “and she would thank your aunt, if she hadn’t been such a horrible woman.”

 

Harry laughed, but couldn’t think what to say in response. Conversations with Ginny used to be easy, but now, she could not help but feel awkward and shy.

 

“Hey, Harry,” Ginny said, cornering Harry against the kitchen counter and laying one gentle hand against her arm.

 

“What is it?”

 

“How are you doing? Really?” Ginny’s brown eyes were wide with concern, her gaze fixed on Harry perceptively.

 

Ginny would always be one of Harry’s oldest and dearest friends, someone to whom Harry would never lie.

 

“I’m okay. Stressed since the Lestrange matter. It’s uh, nothing to do with us, I mean. Our break up. You know that you’ll always be family to me—”

 

“I know,” Ginny said simply. “I know that everything is alright between us. It takes some getting used to though. It’s been so long, and there are _some people_ who don’t seem to understand that we’re not attached at the hip. But you’ve been looking down the last few days—it can’t be because of mum’s cooking.”

 

Harry smiled; as always, Ginny had the right of it. It had been particularly strange at first, when in those first few weeks she had felt Ginny’s absence so keenly. They had moved through life together as a single unit, sharing the same friends and family and it had been impossible to imagine a separate existence. But seeing her again, Harry understood that there was no acrimony between them, that they were still friends foremost, and that their shared family had not been divided by their separation.

 

Harry felt doubt, yes, but she could not doubt the love and care of those around her.

 

“You know, I think your mum’s cooking has been slipping—I only had two and a half servings of the treacle tart yesterday.” Harry grinned. “Honestly, it’s just been work... And Delphi, I guess. My office is going mad, with dozens of alleged sightings of Lestrange a day, and all of them busts. And Delphi—she’s become very attached, and I’ve got no idea how to take care of a seven-year-old girl. I’m afraid to leave her alone with Kreacher at home—that old woman who was supposed to be her guardian didn’t care a bit about her and just left her alone all the time with the House Elf—but she’s not used to other children either.”

 

“Why don’t you talk to Bill and Fleur—or Andromeda? The other two kids seem to have made Delphi come out of her shell a little.”

 

Harry hesitated to speak to her friends about Delphi. They knew of the girl’s parentage, and seemed particularly wary around her, despite Harry’s attempts to convince them to take the young child on her own terms. The cold (at best) reactions to her were not lost on Delphi, who was quick to become shy and to try and hide behind Harry though she did not fully understand the reasons behind other people’s treatment of her.

 

“Yes, you’re right. Andromeda is Delphi’s aunt, after all. I have no idea what to with a child. I fear that I’ve done wrong to bring Delphi back with me. She’s so shy—I think she’s only just beginning to trust me. And with everyone knowing her history… How can I tell her?”

 

“You need to tell her,” Ginny said fiercely, “You have to be the first person to tell her. Not in the twisted way that those Death Eaters obviously did.”

 

Harry nodded at this. She could see the merits of Ginny’s reasoning. However, she feared what the knowledge would mean for Delphi growing up. Would she always be a title, and a lineage, before being a person to those who met her—as Harry herself had been?

 

Harry did not reply immediately to Ginny, and instead moved to stand by the stove, casting a glance into the oven, where the roast was cooking away. Potatoes for the mash were boiling merrily in their large pot.

 

“I have lots of things to work out,” Harry said, with a wan smile.

 

“I get it,” Ginny said, knowing that Harry could be very unforthcoming sometimes, “and if anyone dares to come after you in any way whatsoever, they’d have to come through me.”

 

“Thanks,” Harry said, feeling her voice shake slightly. “I’m watching the food now, so you’d better get to the dining room.”

 

Ginny gave her a gentle hug and left, her red ponytail swinging behind her. Not long after that, Delphi found Harry in the kitchen. Her cheeks were smeared with dirt and her dark hair was falling out of her braids.

 

She cheerfully told Harry that she had been making small gift baskets for the gnomes to set just beyond the hedgerow—a far less violent manner of de-gnoming the back garden that the three children had devised. Harry could only think how unlike either one of her parents the small child was. Dephi had suffered loneliness in her short life—loneliness that Harry understood well—and that could have drawn her closer to the ghosts of Bellatrix Lestrange and Voldemort. Harry knew then that Ginny was right.

 

Harry pulled the potatoes off the stove and Delphi helped her to make the mash. At the dinner, both Ginny and Mrs Weasley took care to mention how much they liked the mashed potatoes that day. And after dinner, while the Weasleys and their guests listen to the wireless and drink cups of tea and hot chocolate, Harry and Delphi put up the last of the decorations on the Christmas tree.

 

* * *

 

 

Delphi collapsed into her narrow camp bed in the room she shared with Harry and Hermione and fell asleep almost immediately. Harry watched the young girl sleep, occasionally tossing fretfully and making pained expressions.

 

“Harry, have you seen my dark blue, woollen socks?” Hermione’s voice cut through Harry’s thoughts. She looked up, startled as Hermione murmured a quick apology. “I didn’t realise Delphi was asleep, sorry.”

 

“That’s alright. Oh, I think Mrs Weasley may have accidentally put them with my clothes. Here they are.” Harry tossed the rolled-up socks onto Hermione’s bed.

 

“Thanks Harry. Isn’t it silly how Molly still insists that Ron and I sleep in separate rooms? We aren’t teenagers anymore.”

 

Harry laughed, “Maybe Mrs Weasley thinks you’ll be too loud and corrupt the children.”

 

Hermione laughed and threw a pillow at Harry’s head. “I do like our sharing though; it’s like being back at Hogwarts.”

 

“Minus Parvati and Lavender’s endless late-night gossiping, you mean?” The other two Gryffindor girls were doing quite well for themselves, as far as Harry knew, though Lavender still suffered from the side effects of her confrontation with Fenrir Greyback during the battle at Hogwarts.

 

“Speaking of gossiping, I do wish we had time to talk more, Harry. I feel that—I haven’t been there for you _enough_ recently. You know, with the baby coming and everything… I feel like we’ve hardly talked these last few months.”

 

“Don’t be silly, Hermione. You’re my best friend. I just… I guess I don’t know what to tell you. I am so happy for you and Ron. Honestly. I can’t wait for the baby to come. I’ve just been busy with work and with Delphi. I just…”

 

Everyone was worried about her all of a sudden. Harry wanted to tell Hermione exactly what she had told Ginny. Everything was back to normal, Harry wanted to say, and there was nothing wrong except that she was worried about the recent changes in her life. But that was not the complete truth. There was something more that had been preoccupying her—she just hadn’t been able to put it into words. It was something she hadn’t felt like she could tell Ginny earlier.

 

Hermione sat down beside Harry and leaned her head against Harry’s shoulder. “Start anywhere,” she said softly.

 

So, Harry started from the first Christmas at Hogwarts after the war. She had been thinking about that a lot, really, since the morning. She did not know all that she wanted to say—only that Hermione would understand it. Harry and Hermione lay side by side in her narrow bed, talking well into the night, well after all the other inhabitants of the Burrow had gone to sleep.

 

Harry ended with her version of what had happened in that house in Paris three months ago and its aftermath. She turned her face to Hermione in the darkness.

 

Then, in a voice that spoke of resignation, Harry asked, “What do you think that means?”

 

* * *

 

 

The next day was the day before Christmas. It dawned with clear pale blue skies and a dusting of snow on the ground. Harry, having been unable to sleep following her conversation with Hermione, had gone downstairs to make her own breakfast and watch the rolling hills around the Burrow brighten with the sun.

 

Harry felt that she knew what she wanted and needed to do. She dressed in her winter cloak and shoes, bade still bleary-eyed Mrs Weasley to care for Delphi should she wake up before Harry had returned, and made her excuses, saying something about needing to go for a walk.

 

She did indeed walk—down to a secluded patch of woods near Ottery St. Catchpole, where she apparated to the familiar laneway she remembered near Chestnut Cottage.

 

This felt like a particularly stupid thing to do, but after her talk with Hermione _and_ her sleeplessness the previous night, Harry felt that no other course of action might bring her satisfaction. Harry took a short breath and knocked on the door.

 

“Potter,” Snape’s thin face appeared at the gap in the door. “I might have guessed that it would be you.”

 

“Can I come in?”

 

“You would not take no for an answer.” Snape stood aside.

 

The house was as messy as Harry remembered it. If anything, Snape had acquired many more jars and bottles filled with a variety of different disgusting contents. Harry felt herself wrinkling her nose when she saw the severed head of some creature floating in a green potion and could not help but blurt out, “Where do you get this stuff?”

 

Snape did not deign to answer this but merely led her to the kitchen, lifting a pile of books from a chair.

 

“No Christmas decorations, Professor?” Harry said, sitting down.

 

Snape leaned against the bench, looking down at her. He chose to ignore her comment, and said, “What are you doing here, Potter? Did I not ask you to stop disturbing me? How very like you to simply disregard the wishes of others in your arrogance.”

 

Harry felt a prickle of anger. Her nerves were already fraught. “No doubt you’d like to add something about how similar you find me to my father.”

 

He did not recoil or react overtly; but the air between them seemed to tense. Silence stretched between them for several seconds.

 

“Don’t ignore me, Snape,” Harry said finally, “You ignored me for seven years.”

 

Of course, that was the wrong thing to say. Harry was sure that Snape would say something about how she needed attention and craved fame. It shocked her then that Snape merely sighed, a hiss of air through his crooked teeth, and continued to stare at her silently.

 

“I just came here to see how you were doing, and to wish you a happy Christmas,” Harry said.

 

“Did you now.” Snape’s voice sounded soft and vicious, as though he were preparing to take away house points again. Not that threat of losing house points or being dismembered could discourage Harry. “Now that you have conveyed your best wishes, will you kindly leave?”

 

“Not just that! Mrs Weasley invited you to their, uh, party. We’d like you to be there.”

 

“No,” Snape said flatly. It seemed to Harry both a rejection of her invitation and a refutation of her statement. “I will not be attending.” He made a motion as though to usher her bodily out of his house.

 

“That’s fine! And I also just wanted to tell you about Delphi. Well Delphini Lestrange. I’ve named myself as her guardian. Not official yet. I think she’s really trusting me. She gets along very well with Teddy Lupin—her cousin, if you remember.”

 

“You picked up another stray? Poor Henrietta Potter continues to believe herself the saviour of the wizarding world. Shall I inform the _Prophet_? Shall you be applauded by the masses? Now you have apprised me of the minutiae of your life, are you content to leave me in peace? I cannot think that you have anything more to say to me.”

 

“No! Please, I—”

 

“Potter,” he said, “you are an insufferable girl. If you do not leave immediately, I promise that it shall be most horrible for you.”

 

“No,” Harry said stubbornly, rising from her chair and taking a step towards Snape. “No, you won’t do anything. Threaten anything you like. I know you won’t hurt me. God knows you’re mean and horrible and you’ve never been _nice_ to me, but you wouldn’t do anything to harm me. Because—because of my mother. Why didn’t you want to speak to me seven years ago? It was because of her, wasn’t it? You didn’t want to tell me about it because you thought you’d die and then you’d never have to say anything to me. You were afraid—that I knew you—that I saw too much of you.”

 

Harry remembered the last time she had accused him of being afraid; she had called him a coward then. There had been a sort of madness in Snape’s face—and in the distance, the sound of a howling, screaming dog. She understood now that he had been afraid, but that he had been braver than she or anyone else knew.

 

“Do not have the gall to think you know me, Potter. I showed you what was needed so that you would defeat the Dark Lord. You did not see—as you put so quaintly—too much of me. You saw what I willed you to see—what you needed to see. I am not to be a _project_ of yours—another one of your strays.” Snape’s voice was cold, his black eyes glittered.

 

Harry opened her mouth to speak, but Snape continued without pausing.

 

“I suggest that you leave, Potter. I did not speak to you after the war because you stopped being my responsibility. You were no longer a student of Hogwarts; you and I had no more reason for further dealings. I did not have to speak to you. I no longer owed you anything. I paid back what was due of me. My errors were the cause of your suffering. Did you forget that it was I who was responsible for the death of your parents? If not for me—for the prophecy I told the Dark Lord—you would not have grown up an orphan. For my past sins I kept you safe; I kept Lily Evans’s child safe. Now I have no more obligation to you, or anyone, or anything else.”

 

“But that’s not true. I mean, you don’t owe me anything anymore, but you still saved me. Again. You didn’t have to do that. It can’t have been for my mother you did that. I think you do care about me.”

 

“Do you find it inconceivable that I did not do that for _you_ , you self-satisfied child? I wanted to see the end of Lestrange and—”

 

“No, you did not let me finish.” Harry stared intently at the tiled floor, rather than look up at Snape’s face. She went on heedless of his frozen expression. “I think you care about me—and I—I care about you. I mean, I’m grateful for you but I—even though you’re horrible and awful, I— _forgive_ you for the prophecy—I think I—”

 

Then, quite to the shock of both parties, Harry closed the distance between them and pressed a kiss to Snape’s lips. She pulled away almost immediately, but not before Snape had jerked back, gripped her arms and thrust her away from him.

 

Snape dropped his hands as though Harry had become burning hot. His face had turned white, except for an ugly red flush in his cheeks.

 

When he spoke again, Snape’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Leave. Now. Potter.”

 

This time, Harry did as he asked. She wrapped her arms around herself and bent her head, hoping that Snape had not seen the tears welling up in her eyes. She had never before been so ashamed of what her feelings were. Harry slammed the door behind her.

 

* * *

 

 

After the echoes of the slammed door had faded, Snape sat down heavily at the kitchen table. But a few seconds perched restlessly on the kitchen stool, he stood up again, and paced around the room. This did not quiet his mind, so he returned to his work table and drew his charts and diagrams towards him.

 

Since he had been released from St. Mungo’s, Snape had continued his research into an antidote for the three patients who had been lying comatose since September. He was coming very close to a solution. Putting his notes aside, Snape understood that this day was the right day to attempt the final version of the antidote. He had dosed a mouse with his variation of the Draught of Living Death. The small creature was now lying peacefully and unobtrusively, sleeping on the window sill.

 

Snape’s silver dagger was heavy in his hand. It had never seemed to him so substantial. The antidote would not be an easy potion to make, but Snape felt as though nothing else were capable of keeping his mind occupied at that moment.

 

He set a clean, copper cauldron on a small stand on the work bench. He prepared the base of a general antidote, slightly altered according to alchemical formulae. This was by far the easiest step. He decanted the green solution into the cauldron and lit a small and steady flame underneath.

 

While the liquid simmered, Snape tried in vain to put the events of the morning—of less than an hour ago—out of his mind. He felt sick at the memory—and disgusted with himself for having let it happen.

 

The girl was an annoyance—had been an annoyance for the past few months. But her manner towards him had been… She had been not unusual. She had spoken in the disrespectful and strong-headed way that she always had at Hogwarts. Of course, he was not her teacher now— _not_ that his position had ever mattered a whit to her.

 

And when she kept returning to St. Mungo’s—he had assumed that she merely felt guilty. Maybe she just wanted to examine him and crack him like one of her cases. He could not consider that she was…

 

He never thought the girl… In the years he had taught, there had been a few students who had formed unsuitable attachments to him, not discouraged by his unpleasant manner and ugliness. Most had been quickly dissuaded when he had confronted them with their foolishness. Those who were more persistent had been dispatched to Dumbledore’s office—and whatever the old man told them worked unfailingly. Snape thought he generally knew the signs of such unsuitable attachments: staring and blushing and spouting a lot of nonsense. Yet, even as Potter had thrust her presence upon him, she had not shown any of these signs.

 

It was inconceivable that Potter’s _gesture_ —as that was the only way Snape could conceive of it—could mean what Potter thought it meant. Of course, she had to be mistaken. It was impossible that Potter would—

 

But the potion was turning the requisite shade of yellow now, and he had to focus on brewing.

 

After several blessed hours free of thoughts of Potter, Snape looked down in satisfaction at a potion the precise shade of pale orange that his calculations had predicted. The swirling steam turned anticlockwise, as it was meant to.

 

Snape decanted the potion into a small pipette. He bent over the curled-up body of the small mouse, stroking its tiny head with a single finger. He coaxed open the animal’s mouth and dosed it with a minute amount of the antidote. It gave a small shudder and uncoiled. Its feet waved feebly in the air for several seconds before it got up in some confusion. Snape conjured a box for the creature and set it inside.

 

The remainder of the antidote he bottled in carefully labelled vials. He had cause to be pleased, yet he did not smile. The antidote had worked on its animal test subject, but he had yet to analyse its composition. And most importantly, test it on a human subject.

 

Hours later, long since the sun had set, Snape carefully packed away his vials and notes in a satchel and opened his long-neglected Floo connection.

 

“The Headmistress’s office at Hogwarts,” he said.

 

Minerva McGonagall was not seated at her desk when Snape emerged, slightly dusty, from the fireplace. He helped himself to a seat opposite her chair, set his satchel on the other chair, and waited for McGonagall to emerge.

 

Eventually, she entered her office and bit back an unbecoming gasp. “Goodness, what are you doing here?” Her Scottish brogue was prominent, which meant that she had likely been indulging in one of her favoured single malts.

 

“Good evening, Headmistress McGonagall,” he said formally. When McGonagall stepped aside to also reveal Professor Slughorn and his replacement, Snape extended his cordial greeting to them.

 

“It is a fortunate thing that you are here, Professor Slughorn,” Snape said, “I sought the assistance of a Potioneer.”

 

“Ah, Severus! What an excellent surprise! A merry Christmas to you,” Slughorn beamed, manoeuvring past McGonagall to shake Snape’s hand buoyantly. “And may I introduce our new Professor of Potions—”

 

Snape cut him off. “I would not have come if I did not require your help urgently.”

 

“Of course, dear boy,” Slughorn said, “Whatever can we do to be of service?”

 

Snape unpacked his bag, setting the vials and notes on McGonagall’s desk. The three professors looked down at the assembled items and waited for Snape’s explanation. The youngest, Slughorn’s replacement, was a wiry, solemn man likely in his fifties who looked at Snape with immense interest but no hint of fear or dislike.

 

When Snape had brusquely explained what he needed, McGonagall raised a quizzical eyebrow (a cutting expression of which Snape had only succeeded in achieving a faint imitation).

 

“You’re saying, Severus, that we are to poison you with a potion of your own making, and then administer a supposed antidote that may or may not be successful. And the purpose of this is to cure three others who are currently suffering the effects of your sleeping potion.”

 

“Adequately summarised, Headmistress,” Snape said.

 

“My dear boy,” Slughorn said, “this is a wonderful development. I say, as your old teacher, what an achievement! Not only has your research—”

 

“Professor Slughorn,” McGonagall said sharply, “Hogwarts strongly discourages students from self-experimentation. Why can you not test this potion on the patients?”

 

“I should like to be certain of the antidote’s efficacy. They have been in the state of living death for over three months now. As you know, the longer they are under its effects, the more volatile their reaction might be. If the potion does not work as I expect, they would likely die.”

 

Slughorn nodded in agreement. He knew the effects of long-lasting poisons as well as Snape did.

 

“But if the antidote is unsuccessful in waking you?”

 

“Then I have left my notes here, and another may continue the research.” Snape’s glittering black eyes flickered to his old teacher, and he wondered if Slughorn would be up to the task.

 

McGonagall made a dissatisfied noise at the back of her throat. “I agree to it, but I say this to you, Severus…”

 

Minerva always become maudlin and eloquent after a few drinks, Snape knew, yet he did not expect her curt speech: “You must see how abominable it is that you should put such a task on us. You fail to understand that seeing you give your own life so little regard brings us—your friends—pain. It is not worthy of a Slytherin. I will do it if I must—but this is cruel of you.”

 

 


	10. Holidays

December 2005

 

The reception area of St. Mungo’s was crowded with witches and wizards with all manner of magical injuries and illnesses, yet the room was also festively decorated, with large baubles hanging from the ceilings and several large Christmas trees with glittering lights.

 

Snape was escorted through the room quickly by a wizard dressed in green robes, who was particularly eager to take him to the ward where his patients were still lying asleep.

 

Rutherford Poke was a spokesperson for St. Mungo’s. His frequent public service announcements, delivered in an exasperated and long-suffering manner, was a great source of amusement to the Hogwarts professors who had known him as a student about a decade ago. Snape had taught him and thought well of his abilities—and having been a polite, studious Hufflepuff, Snape had felt no animosity toward Poke.

 

The healer led Snape directly to the third-floor long-term ward. All of the patients in this room had been afflicted with sleeping potions of various kinds. It was so quiet that their footsteps echoed throughout the room.

 

“You’ll find them at the end of the ward here, Professor Snape,” Poke said in a whisper. It was unlikely that any of the patients would be able to hear them.

 

Snape spoke in his usual tone. “Have you been keeping notes on their progress throughout their stay?”

 

“Of course, Professor,” Poke replied, “their body functions are normal—consistent with the effects of a normal dose of the Draught of Living Death. May I say, Professor, your modifications to the potion are very interesting. My colleagues were utterly baffled. We have been unsuccessful in creating an antidote, and the Head Healer was just due to write to a Potions Master in Sweden when Headmistress McGonagall called me. He apologises that he can’t be here… It is Christmas Day. My family lives in America so…”

 

“Small talk is unnecessary.”

 

“Oh no, sir, it is a pleasure to see you again! I always enjoyed your classes, they were a great challenge.”

 

Snape scoffed at Poke’s blatant flattering politeness and focused instead on the three beds at the end of the ward and the people lying in them. For all intents and purposes, each of the three looked as though they were merely asleep. Their breaths were deep and even, their limbs arranged comfortably. They even stirred occasionally.

 

“I shall require that you perform some basic diagnostic and monitoring spells on each of them as I administer the antidote,” Snape said.

 

“Who shall we start with? I heard that you administered the antidote on yourself. It was successful, clearly. Self-experimentation was always frowned on at Hogwarts.” Poke raised a wry eyebrow.

 

Snape glanced at the three sleeping figures. He pointed at the man lying closest to the end, who had roughly the same build as he himself did. “Let us start with that one.”

 

“Hold on a second,” Poke said, “What are they doing here?”

 

Snape saw, striding across the room, Kingsley Shacklebolt and the Head of the Auror Office—Proudfoot, Snape thought he was called.

 

“Snape,” Kingsley said, in his slow voice. “What do you think you’re doing here?”

 

Poke said in what was meant to be a conciliatory voice, “Professor Snape has created an antidote—”

 

Proudfoot interrupted him. “And you did not think to seek the Ministry’s approval before administering such an untested potion?”

 

“Well uh—Minister—uh, sir—”

 

“What Mr Poke is attempting to say is that, as you know, such potions increase in potency over time,” Snape said smoothly, “the three-month mark is particularly significant. Therefore, it was imperative that the antidote should be administered immediately. I have tested it on animal subjects and myself, and you will see that it causes no harm.”

 

“But you have not observed procedure, Snape,” Proudfoot said, “these are witnesses under the protection of the Auror Office. You of all people cannot be trusted to—”

 

“I saw no protection here,” Snape sneered, “If you meant to protect these witnesses of yours from harm, then you have done a poor job of it. If _I_ meant them harm, I could have killed and dismembered them in the time it took you to arrive.”

 

Proudfoot bristled and reached for his wand as Poke gestured with his hands in vain.

 

“Proudfoot, calm yourself,” Kingsley said. “Snape, you should have registered your antidote with the Minister _and_ sought permission before administering experimental potions on patients. In this instance however, I believe that what you, and Healer Poke, has said holds merit.”

 

“But Minister! You remember that this is Snape, don’t you?” Proudfoot interjected.

 

“Yes, thank you. I said _stand down_ Proudfoot. Snape, Healer Poke, continue as you were. Proudfoot and I will observe. We shall be vigilant to _any issues_.” Kingsley made a motion with his hand, and the two of them retreated to lean against the wall.

 

“An audience, huh,” Poke said, with an awkward laugh that was not echoed by anyone else.

 

“The diagnostic spells, if you please,” Snape said. He set his satchel on the side table and unfolded his diagrams and charts, levitating them around him for easy visibility.

 

Poke seemed to gather himself and cleared his throat. He muttered a charm which cast a soft gold glow over the patient.

 

All in all, the procedure went smoothly. Snape had adjusted the doses correctly and each patient came out of their deep sleep without incident. They turned groggily in their beds, their limbs still weakened and unused to movement.

 

“Do not try to speak, Miss Li,” Snape said, seeing that she was trying to move her mouth, “you must first recover your strength. Do not doubt that the Ministry has those responsible for your poisoning well in hand.” At this, Snape shot a rather contemptuous look at Kingsley and Proudfoot, who were both still standing vigilantly by.

 

Sue shifted slightly in against her pillow, but she was still weak. She closed her eyes again.

 

Snape left specific instructions that the patients were to receive no additional potions for at least five days and that they should be given water and light meals until they recovered. Proudfoot was pacing restlessly now, glaring from the patients to Snape to the healer.

 

“If you please, Snape,” Kingsley said, when Snape had finished packing away his potions and provided an example of the antidote to a particularly excited Poke. “I would like a private word with you.”

 

Snape raised an eyebrow and gave a curt nod of acknowledgement. Kingsley had not spoken to him much after the war. What little dealings they had had was in the due course of his previous role as Hogwarts Headmaster—matters of security, transport and particularly influential parents generally.

 

“Shall we go up to the fifth floor?” Snape said. “Continue to monitor the patients, Poke.”

 

Kingsley preceded Snape out of the ward and strode to the elevators. Snape observed the Minister from behind. Shacklebolt had always had a commanding and efficient manner about him, and that had only grown in over the past seven years. Under Shacklebolt, the Ministry had gone under review. Those who had supported Voldemort, openly or in secret, had been the subject of considerable scrutiny.

 

However, Kingsley had also been serious about addressing some of the fundamental shortcomings of wizarding law—in particular towards its treatment of muggleborns and squibs. This had not made him particularly likeable amongst the traditionalists. Yet, for all that he was a champion of change, Kingsley himself was the last scion of an illustrious pureblood family. Perhaps his radicalism was made more bearable for his opponents by his undeniable heritage.

 

Snape also knew that for the past three years or so, Kingsley’s right-hand woman had been Hermione Granger—who no doubt had her own political ambitions. He wondered what influence the Granger girl might assert on the man—and on the Ministry more widely. If Granger was anything like what she had been like when she was his student, she would not settle until she had reached the very top.

 

The elevator stopped on the fifth floor and the two stepped into the near-empty tea room. The gift shop was closed since it was Christmas Day. There was a lone, elderly witch acting as cashier but her nose was deeply buried in a thick book.

 

Kingsley sat down near one of the windows, far away from the three other patrons. Snape took the seat opposite.

 

“I wanted a word with you, alone,” Kingsley said in his low voice.

 

“Evidently, I am at your command, Minister,” Snape said shortly.

 

“I am very glad to hear that, Snape, as I have a proposal for you.”

 

“Indeed?”

 

“You are obviously capable, Snape, and to the best of your knowledge, you are not employed.”

 

“You have summarised my situation adequately,” Snape said, his lip curling slightly.

 

Kingsley ignored this impertinence and continued. “The Ministry is in need of a person such as yourself. Someone with expertise in matters of potions and poisoning. Someone who conducts research with the full knowledge and support of our organisation and whose work is to our benefit.”

 

“That is a very pleasant state of affairs which you have described. Minister.”

 

“Do not be deliberately difficult,” Kingsley said, with a shadow of annoyance. “I am asking whether you would like to take on this role. You would report to my office directly, although you would be working in concert with the Auror Office.”

 

“No doubt that Proudfoot of yours—”

 

“Proudfoot is the Head of the Auror Office, yes, but he will have no bearing on this appointment. If you were to accept this role, you would be working on cases of poisoning which the Auror Office takes on, but I stress to you that he will not be your superior. In fact, you may head your own office, staffed with those you deem suitable—with my input, of course. The Ministry has considered having such specialised research functions now for quite some time. I believe you have the experience and knowledge necessary.”

 

Snape was intrigued despite himself. “This position has full independence for research?”

 

“I believe that could be easily arranged. If you were to accept, you would take on cases assigned by myself—for the Ministry’s purposes—and the rest of your time may be occupied in conducting research or developing new potions.” Kingsley leaned back in his chair. “All this can be further clarified, of course.”

 

“You said that _if_ I were to take on this role, I would investigate cases of poisoning?”

 

“Your results would be presented to my office, and they would then inform the case of the Auror Office, if and when cases go to prosecution by the Wizengamot.” Kingsley fell silent, watching the quiet and still expression in the other man’s face.

 

After becoming Minister, he had meant to put in an office in the Ministry in some sort of investigatory and research capacity for some time now—he hoped one day that it would expand past poisons and potions. Perhaps it would encompass research into all manner of new and interesting magics—particularly when they were turned to nefarious purposes. Kingsley had been at a loss about the appointment and it had been Hermione who had had raised the excellent suggestion.

 

Kingsley had always had a healthy respect for Snape. Though the man was unpleasant and rude at the best of times, any man who could pull the wool over Voldemort’s eyes through two wars was deserving of some admiration. And as he had been in the company of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger for so many years, he had been badgered by their praise of the man’s bravery.

 

No doubt, whatever the man’s character—he _had_ been a Death Eater in his youth after all—he did have the necessary skills and experience for _this_ particular undertaking.

 

Snape was now running a thumb across his jaw in contemplation. “What about remuneration,” he said at last.

 

Kingsley maintained his serious expression, not betraying his inward satisfaction. “You will find the pay scale for Ministry employees here.” He drew a single sheet of parchment from his pocket. “Your role will be commensurate with this level.” He pointed at a single row of figures. “I trust that you will not find the sum beneath you.”

 

Snape made no visible reaction. He was not a man who was particularly moved by money. When he was younger, he would have been. Now however, it held little temptation for him. Snape had raised to issue merely to see the realistic value which Kingsley had placed on this position. Snape was already well off, since whilst at Hogwarts, he had had very little cause to expend his considerable income as Headmaster. He could have fared very well without proper employment for quite some years.

 

“I will think your proposal over, Minister,” Snape said, “you may expect me at your office in the new year with my final response—and what I will require from you if I were to accept.”

 

“Very well. May I just say, Professor, that you have done extremely well in this case. I am grateful that we may inform the victims’ families of their recovery. I trust that it has brought you satisfaction too.” Kingsley hoped this last comment would evoke some sense of obligation in Snape, but the other man seemed unmoved.

 

“Minister,” Snape nodded, which was the only acknowledgment that he gave.

 

* * *

 

 

When the two men returned to the ward from the tea room, they were confronted by more unexpected visitors. It was precisely the person Snape wanted to see least in the world. And from the horrified expression which came over Harry Potter’s face when she saw him, she felt the same way about him.

 

“I came with Demelza, Minister, Proudfoot,” Harry said, gesturing to the woman who was sitting by the bed, murmuring to Sue, clasping her hand tightly.

 

“I took the liberty of contacting the families of the patients, sir,” Poke said, “while you were gone. Uh, Proudfoot said that it would be fine.”

 

Just as he finished speaking, several others strode through the ward.

 

“Here would be the other families,” Poke said. “I think it would be best to give everyone a little bit of privacy. I’ll just be over there.”

 

“I believe this would be our cue to leave,” said Proudfoot.

 

“For the first time today, I am in agreement,” said Snape with a sneer. He made to walk towards the door, only to have a small child barrel into his legs and reel precariously. On instinct, he seized the sleeve of her shirt, righting her again.

 

Delphi looked up into his face with large brown eyes.

 

Potter came to the child’s side. “Are you alright, Delphi?”

 

The girl gave a small nod, swivelling her gaze between Snape and her guardian. Snape had not seen the girl since the house in Paris, and then only briefly during the events of that day. To think of that day also made Snape think of the girl’s parents. He could see that she had her mother’s gleaming dark hair. He was glad for the fact that her father’s appearance later in life had not been hereditary. In fact, she was little like her parents—her eyes lacked the cruelty and hatred that theirs had possessed.

 

“Oh yes, this is Professor Snape,” Harry said awkwardly, “Do you remember him?”

 

Delphi gave another small nod and a twitch of her shoulders that might have been a shrug.

 

It would be futile to compare the girl with her parents, as no doubt everyone who knew of her parentage would do when they met her. The child was still a child—unformed, her mind unset.

 

With an internal flash of shock, Snape found himself thinking how Potter too had been unformed—how she had not asked to be born to her parents and in that manner, under those circumstances. He ruthlessly suppressed his conscience.

 

“Good morning, Delphi,” he said to the child, “take care to watch where you’re going in the future.” That was about as civil as he ever was, much less to a child.

 

To his surprise, Delphi seemed to recognise the conciliatory nature of his comment and offered a small, ill-fitting smile.

 

Behind him, Proudfoot cleared his throat. “We shall be going now. Have a good Christmas, Potter.”

 

As Proudfoot was waiting for Snape to precede him to the exit, Snape gave a curt nod to Potter and walked on. Kingsley had remained behind to speak to Poke in the office.

 

“The child, strange girl, isn’t she?” said Proudfoot suddenly, “She seems so… Well I am glad that Potter will be keeping an eye on her.”

 

“Is that how she convinced you to let her take on the girl?”

 

“Yes, you know we can’t have a child of _her_ parentage just let loose on the wizarding world!”

 

“I very much doubt that Potter, friend to House Elves and half-giants, thinks of her charge as a Dark Lord in waiting.”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

Snape gave Proudfoot a razor-thin smile. “Merely that you are sadly ill-qualified for your role. Yet you do not have the intelligence to see it.”

 

“How dare you! You Death Eater—”

 

Proudfoot continued talking, but Snape tuned his voice out, still thinking about the young Delphi.

 

* * *

 

 

“Harry, dear, can you dress the salads? Oh, Arthur, take Hagrid’s coat and put it in the laundry won’t you, it needs drying out.” Molly’s voice echoed through the house, delegating tasks left and right.

 

The dining room had been magically expanded and set out with a long table and mismatched chairs. The Christmas tree shone regally in the corner; the room was festooned with strands of coloured tinsel. Outside, the sky was dark with grey, snow-laden clouds.

 

“Lunch is almost ready,” Molly called throughout the house.

 

The house seemed to give an exhale and disgorged its inhabitants into the dining room in a flood. Most members of the Second Order of the Phoenix gathered around the dining table and took their seats around the long dining table. All the members of the Weasley family were there—Molly, Arthur, Bill with Fleur and their children, Charlie, Percy, George, Ron and Ginny. The ghost of Fred, of course, was also a conspicuous presence.

 

Other ghosts also lingered in the faces of those gathered—Remus and Nymphadora and Ted Tonks in the faces of little Teddy and his grandmother, Andromeda. Colin Creevey in the face of his brother Dennis. The pain of all those absent would be always with them. Even now, Harry turned around, expecting to see Sirius’s wild face or Moody’s strangely spinning eye.

 

The completeness of this reunion only served to emphasise their losses.

 

Harry recognised all the old faces: some she had not seen for many months, others she saw on a regular basis. Even Professor McGonagall, now Headmistress, had made an appearance in her most festive green tartan. Molly had reluctantly invited Mundungus Fletcher, who sat in the seat closest to the exit. Harry gave him a thin smile. He had reformed considerably after the war.

 

Harry took a seat between Hestia Jones, who usually worked collecting rare magical plants for apothecaries in remote locations, and Kingsley Shacklebolt, who she had seen just that morning. Seeing Kingsley reminded her of seeing _him_ in St. Mungo’s that very morning. She imagined him now in his little cottage with the windows drawn and likely eating nothing. Harry had noticed that he often ate nothing.

 

Harry had had lonely Christmases when the Dursleys had gone away for the holidays; she could not contemplate experiencing such a state again. Maybe he did not care. He had certainly not seemed to care for her company. It was ridiculous that she missed him, when they had not been more than barely civil to one another. And when she had behaved so unthinkably just yesterday.

 

“Potter,” Kingsley said, “Happy Christmas.”

 

“You too, Minister,” Harry replied.

 

“Don’t stand on ceremony here,” Kingsley smiled. “Just Kingsley will do. I was glad to see you this morning, Potter. I meant to speak to you.”

 

“What about?”

 

“A job offer. I hate to talk official business at Christmas, but I want you to know as soon as possible. I believe Proudfoot is far too set in his ways to head up the Auror Office for much longer. He has experience, but he is unwilling to change, unwilling to accept when others might have better ideas. I also understand that he feels that he should like to return to an investigations role now that his children are grown up. He may soon take up a role reporting to the Wizengamot.”

 

“You’re offering me his job?”

 

“I believe you would be an asset. If it becomes vacant, the position would be yours, should you wish it.” Kingsley fixed Harry with a sharp stare.

 

“There are others… More experienced—more qualified—”

 

“There is nothing you’re not qualified for, Potter. As far as I am concerned, I need someone like you who will not be burdened by things as they were. I would trust no one more in the role.”

 

“Thank you, Kingsley, but I—”

 

“Don’t give me your response yet. Maybe you’d like to talk it over and think about it.”

 

“I will think about it,” Harry said in a whisper.

 

“You are by far an easier person to offer a job to,” Kingsley said, his face relaxing into a smile.

 

Harry’s curiosity was roused. “You offered someone else a job?”

 

“Snape,” Kingsley grimaced, “and he was his usual pleasant self about it.”

 

Harry felt her stomach lurch. But she did not question Kingsley further. Hestia, who had been speaking with Fleur on her other side about her travels in France, gave Harry a warm smile.

 

“Long time no see, Harry. And Kingsley, it _is_ good not to be seeing you from inside a holding cell.”

 

“I do apologise for the misunderstanding,” Kingsley said, “you _did_ have a license for all the highly rare and toxic materials you had.”

 

“Very true—no hard feelings.”

 

“This does sound like a very interesting story… I want to hear all about it.”

 

Their conversation continued as the Weasleys brought out the vast array of dishes, plates and sauces were passed around the table, and wine glasses were filled.

 

Arthur, seated at one end of the table, rose to his feet. The guests fell silent. “This is the seventh Christmas after the Final Battle—after Voldemort’s defeat. We gather here today with our absent friends. We honour their sacrifice. We know that they would take joy in today—in the community we have built.”

 

Arthur raised his glass. Every other guest raised their glass in answer.

 

“Here, here,” murmured Elphias Doge, his white hair bobbing.

 

“Harry, if you’d like to say some words?”

 

“Thank you, Arthur. Thank you, everyone, for being here. I really could not have said it better than Arthur.” Harry glanced around at the familiar faces, looking at her expectantly. “I just wanted to say how much I appreciate what you all did seven years ago. It was a hard choice, but one which you all made willingly. Without the actions of brave people like you—we would not—we wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be here.”

 

Harry swallowed; would her audience take well to what she wanted to say? “But I asked Arthur if I could say some words today… We all wouldn’t be here without the bravery of others. If not for Narcissa Malfoy, I would not have survived. Regulus Black stood up to Voldemort by trying to destroy one of his Horcruxes. All of us are still healing. We must now live with those who may not believe what we believe—who did not fight on the winning side. As Sirius once said to me, the world is not divided into good people and Death Eaters. We cannot build a new, better world without—without everyone in it. We must show—show what Voldemort didn’t understand—love.”

 

Harry raised her glass: “To our friends, and the world they may yet build.”

 

To Harry’s immense relief, everyone around the table raised their glasses in response. She saw that Hermione’s eyes were shining with tears. Most faces around the table looked sombre. Harry sat down in her chair again, clasping her hands underneath the table so that Hestia and Kingsley could not see them shaking.

 

The table remained silent, as though in thought, until Ron’s stomach gave a loud rumble. He blushed and grinned awkwardly. This broke the tension. Arthur chimed in with an offer to carve the ham and the turkey, which every guest took to be an invitation to begin eating.

 

Harry helped herself to roast vegetables, gravy, mashed potatoes, salads and accepted large helpings of turkey and ham.

 

Soon, everyone became louder under the influence of Ginny’s excellent mulled wine.

 

By the time dessert was being served, guests were shouting raucously across the table and laughing. There were several spontaneous bursts of song. George took the opportunity to demonstrate a new version of his ever-popular Skiving Snackboxes which made bright, Christmas green boils erupt all over his face.

 

Harry felt weight lifting from her shoulders as the night progressed. It would be like that first Christmas after the war at Hogwarts. Their capacity for love, compassion and healing were undiminished. There were scars—but that made them stronger and not weaker.

 

At midnight, Harry found herself singing along to Celestina Warbeck’s greatest hits with no regrets.

 

 


	11. Revelations

December 2005

 

Delphi woke her up with a small hand against her shoulder. When Harry lit the lamp, she was confronted by the sight of the child’s anxiously twisted face; her eyes were enormous.

 

“Harry,” said Delphi.

 

“What is it?” Harry said, rubbing her eyes. “Did you have a nightmare?”

 

“Why did people yesterday stare at me?” Delphi asked in a small voice.

 

Harry cast a charm around them so that their conversation would not disturb Hermione, who was still sleeping in the next bed.

 

It must have bothered her a great deal if she wanted to willingly talk to Harry about it. Harry thought about lying and saying that people were staring at how well the child looked in her new, cheery yellow dress that Molly had remade for her out of one of Ginny’s childhood frocks. It would have been wrong for her to do so.

 

“What do you know of your parents, Delphi?”

 

“I—I don’t know. The man—he was my uncle, wasn’t he? He said he was my uncle. He was nice to me.” A small frown appeared between Delphi’s brows. “He said he would give me something that would explain everything—explain who my parents were… He gave me the shiny globe?”

 

“Yes,” Harry said, forcing her mind to work, “He thought that would help you. But Delphi, it wasn’t really going to let you know about your parents or bring them back. They died in the war.”

 

“In the war?” Delphi said, “Were they heroes, like the people you were talking about?”

 

“No, I’m sorry, they were not. Why don’t you come up and sit in bed with me? I have to tell you Delphi that they were not good people. Your mother and father did some awful things.”

 

“No…” Delphi drew back from Harry, her eyes widening even further.

 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry to tell you that your parents hurt other people—that they were not kind people. I don’t want to lie to you. That is why the people stare at you. It doesn’t change how much I care about you, Delphi.”

 

The child curled in upon herself, but Harry reached out to catch her small hand in her own. “Do they hate me?”

 

“They do not know you, my dear. They think about your parents when they see you. They might have truly disliked your parents. They do _not_ know you.” Harry squeezed the child’s hand. “I know you. You haven’t hurt anyone. You’re a very kind person, I know.”

 

“What if they always hate me?”

 

“Then you will know that there will always be someone who loves you,” Harry whispered. “You’re not your parents, Delphi, you’ll be your own person. Your parents may have chosen to do bad things, but you won’t have to. I’ll be with you; I’ll help you.”

 

Delphi made a small inchoate sound and curled into an even smaller ball. Tears were running down her face and wetting Harry’s pillow as her body shook. Harry did not know what to do except wrap her arms around the child’s shoulders. But this seemed to be the right thing, as the sobs gradually subsided.

 

“I promise I will always do my best to help you and to stay by you,” Harry said, the words tasting unfamiliar in her mouth because no adult had really said that to her—no adult had promised her something with no ulterior motives.

 

Delphi remained silent, but she uncurled slightly and wrapped her arms around Harry’s waist, so her tear-stained face pressed into her pyjamas. Harry stroked her soft, dark hair until the child closed her eyes and her breathing deepened into sleep.

 

When the sun rose in the morning, Hermione found the two of them still fast asleep.

 

* * *

 

 

January 2006

 

Harry picked up the phone. She looked at the short list of contacts. Without allowing herself to think too carefully about what she was doing, she typed out a brief message and pressed ‘send’. Then she put the phone face down in the corner of her desk and tried not think about whether a reply would be forthcoming.

 

Delphi was visiting with Teddy Lupin at his grandmother’s house for the day. As she had hoped, the young boy had no concept or desire to know who Delphini’s parents were. He addressed her affectionately, under the direction of his grandmother, as cousin. This had immediately endeared him to the still very shy Delphi.

 

Harry was grateful for the break. She had not had any weekends to herself for months. At twenty-five years of age, she had never considered herself maternal in any way. She had not thought that she would have a child. There was only so much Molly’s advice could help her—the experience was to be _lived_ , after all. What she had not particularly expected was the excoriating gazes of passers-by when she would take Delphi out.

 

At first, she thought it strange, before she realised that there was probably a prevailing prejudice against teenaged mothers.

 

Her own mother had almost been a teenaged mother. She had definitely been a teen when she fell pregnant with Harry.

 

For the millionth or billionth time, Harry wished she could speak to her. Just once. She missed the Lily Potter she had never known so much. It ached. It ached even more, recently. Everything she now did with Delphi was something that Lily Potter had never had the opportunity to do with her own child. Lily Potter had never taught her daughter to ride a bike, or plant herbs in the garden, or make a simple bruise salve. Lily Potter had never been able to see her child off to school, and make friends of her own, and any number of stolen milestones.

 

Harry was reminded of her photo album—the one that Hagrid had given her after her first year.

 

She pulled down from her bookshelf and stroked the fine leather cover. The scent was rich and familiar—the closest that she would come to her parents now.

 

There was the forest—that one wonderful moment she saw the still-youthful visages of James and Lily Potter. She was older than both of them would ever be. They had borne her and died all before they knew themselves as adults fully grown.

 

Harry opened the photo album to the first page. There was a small photograph from her parents’ wedding. A number of guests gathered all around the smiling couple. She had examined the photograph in detail many times, especially over summers at the Dursleys’. Beside James stood Sirius, Remus and Peter, their youthful faces beaming into the camera. Beside Lily stood a bright-eyed woman Harry recognised as Marlene McKinnon, and beside her, the pinched face of Harry’s Aunt Petunia.

 

And the in the second row, standing behind the groom, a rather elderly couple. Her paternal grandparents. The man had a mop of messy hair and wore glasses much like his son’s. The woman was elegant looking, her long hair twisted into a chignon. Her face was happy, smiling like all the others. Harry could not imagine this same face twisted into the mask of hate which she had seen in person.

 

Harry turned the page. Here was James and Lily again, sitting in a little garden in Godric’s Hollow, their arms wound around each other. Occasionally, James would wave up at the viewer, and Lily would tuck her hair gently behind her ear.

 

Harry turned the page back. She resembled her grandmother. She had her grandmother’s rather thin face and her curved mouth—just like her father.

 

Harry could not understand why… But then, Harry was coming to find, there was very much that she could not fully understand.

 

She turned the pages of the photo album. Here were photographs of her parents as children. Her mother in an unmoving muggle snapshot, posed in the front garden of a suburban house; her father on a child’s broomstick, zooming in and out of frame. Here were photographs of her parents at school. Here, there were many more photographs of her father than her mother. Many more pictures of her father and his friends in the familiar surrounds of Hogwarts.

 

Harry turned the pages again. Here then were her parents in the last years of their short lives. They stood with members of the Order of the Phoenix, smiling serenely into the camera. Were they accepting their deaths even then? And finally, there were pictures of herself as a baby—held in her parents’ arms, or lying in her cot, or crawling across a rug.

 

On the very last page, Harry had pasted the ripped photograph she had found in Sirius’s bedroom, under the dresser where she knew Snape had left it in his grief and pain. The other half of the picture—the half with her mother’s laughing face—she wondered whether Snape still had it. There had been other photographs in Sirius’s bedroom in Grimmauld Place, which she had later found. She had collected them all into a separate album. Yet this one photograph… Harry herself zooming on a child’s broomstick in the happy company of her parents—this one she treasured above all.

 

If she thought very hard, maybe she remembered the sounds of her own laughter and the laughter of her parents in the scene. Harry ran her fingers over the tear. The glossy surface of the photograph caught the sun and the ragged, rough paper underneath caught against Harry’s skin.

 

Harry hummed a song she remembered from her childhood. A song that Aunt Petunia used to sing to Dudley when he would fuss.

 

She turned the pages back again—back to the frozen moment of her parents’ wedding.

 

* * *

 

 

“For fuck’s sake, go away!” Snape wrenched back the door of his cottage, a very sharp frown between his brows.

 

His visitor glanced up sharply. “Is that any way to speak to the Headmistress of Hogwarts?”

 

Minerva McGonagall stood there, dressed in a heavy travelling cloak over robes edged in a festive-looking tartan. A thick woollen hat covered her head, under which her black and greying hair was wound up in a loose bun rather unlike her more severe, usual style.

 

“Professor McGonagall,” Snape said wryly, “You are an unexpected presence.”

 

“I should think so,” she said, raising an eyebrow, “May I ask who might have been the object of such ire?”

 

“No one of note,” Snape said, allowing McGonagall to enter the cottage.

 

McGonagall’s significant silence lingered for several moments. She stood in the middle of the sitting room frowningly, looking for anywhere to sit. “What sort of house is this, Severus? If _any_ of my students’ dormitories looked like this…”

 

Snape might have looked sheepish for a few seconds, before he schooled his features and rolled his eyes, “Come into the kitchen then.”

 

“Severus,” McGonagall said, “I shudder to imagine what are in those jars. Where on earth do you keep the china?”

 

Snape gestured briefly to the pile of plates and mugs by what she assumed was the sink. McGonagall could not tell, because there seemed to be a large clump of gillyweed obscuring the area. She did not remember Snape’s quarters being so ridiculously unkempt at Hogwarts. If anything, he had been rather spartan in his habits.

 

“Is there something I can help you with, Headmistress?”

 

“Don’t stand on formalities, Severus. Can I not wish an old colleague happy holidays? The new term has not yet begun, and I am making the most of my holidays by getting in touch with my friends.”

 

Snape raised an eyebrow. “Is that all?”

 

“Besides,” said McGonagall, “you weren’t at the Weasley’s gathering at Christmas, despite my express invitation.”

 

“How tedious.”

 

“You would have been welcome, Severus. You were quite as much a member of the Order as all of us!”

 

At that, Snape gave a contemptuous snort. “I daresay I was not missed.”

 

“No, in fact, Miss Potter asked after you especially. She seemed very put out when—”

 

McGonagall noticed that he had started frowning at the mere mention of Potter’s name. “Enough of the girl! I thought we were long since rid of the horrid creature.”

 

“Severus!” McGonagall said, “I wish you would see that Miss Potter is not unkind. She has tremendous compassion and she is putting effort into making friends with you.”

 

At this Snape wanted to laugh. _Make friends_ indeed. “Surely you did not come to talk of our worst students? Next you will be telling me about Longbottom.”

 

A small smile played at the corners of McGonagall’s thin lips. “Miss Potter was not the _very worst_. Nor Mr Longbottom. He has become quite the sought-after herbologist you know? Pomona tells me that he is particularly excellent with potions ingredients.” With a glance at the gillyweed in the sink, McGonagall added, “I’m sure you two would benefit from sharing your knowledge.”

 

“I’m sure _you_ think so,” Snape said acidly.

 

“I’m sure I do,” she replied. “You have been remiss in not offering me a drink, Severus.”

 

“Very well. I shall oblige you in whatever mummery you are currently engaged in. _Tea_?”

 

“No mummery, Severus. And don’t you have anything stronger?”

 

Snape scoffed again. “Coffee?”

 

“Oh, very well, save your firewhisky for yourself then, selfish man! To think I came to visit one I considered a friend!”

 

“I believe it is usual etiquette that the guest brings such offerings.”

 

“A cup of tea then, if you please.”

 

Snape filled the kettle magically with water and set it on the hob. He conjured up another kitchen chair as McGonagall had taken the only one he owned.

 

“You surely did not come here to share in my festivities. As you can see, there are none. Tell me whatever it is that you have come to tell me.”

 

“Don’t be such a curmudgeon,” McGonagall said, “Black tea, please.”

 

Snape fished two mugs from the pile of his chinaware and dropped a sad-looking tea bag into each one. He handed one mug to McGonagall and nursed the other against the palm of his hand.

 

“Your potion was a success?”

 

“Yes.” Snape said shortly, glancing at McGonagall through slightly narrowed eyes.

 

“No small thing to develop new potions,” she said lightly.

 

“Is this what this is about? Potions?”

 

McGonagall took a gentle sip of her hot tea. “I heard about the job offer from Kingsley Shacklebolt. Now, before you tell me politely to not stick my nose in your business, you might want to know that Shacklebolt was insistent that I should try to convince you.”

 

“I should like you to kindly stay out of my business, Headmistress.”

 

“Come now, Severus,” McGonagall said, a little sharply, “don’t you think I know you by now? I have known you since the age of eleven.”

 

Snape bit back the retort that came to his lips. That she had not really known him at all—that she had known an angry child and an angry and grieving young man. But that would be revealing too much of himself—that he himself did not know the man he was now after seven years of unexpected peace.

 

He tempered his voice into bland smoothness. “Nevertheless, Professor, I cannot see why this should interest you.”

 

“It interests me because you are my friend—not just a colleague. I expect to see you on occasion and _not_ just because you want someone to poison you. And I want the best for you.” McGonagall glanced up at him over the rim of her cup, “I don’t think whatever you’re doing _here_ is good for you.”

 

Snape stared at her silently for several moments. “Thank you, Professor,” he said in an icy voice, “your concern is… appreciated. But I may remind you that what I choose to do is entirely my business. You may have known me for a long time, Professor, but I owe you nothing. Nor do I seek your approval. I will not tell you that you are unwelcome in my house, Professor…”

 

“Stop it. Merlin!” She seemed to struggle with herself for a moment, and said, “You’re a piece of work, Severus! No, be quiet.”

 

McGonagall sounded quite as stern as he remembered. She had always commanded the attention of a class easily, but she used her disciplinarian’s voice now. Snape had not liked her when he was a student at Hogwarts. She had always seemed to favour the Gryffindors—particularly Snape’s tormentors—and turned a blind eye to reports of their bullying. Of course, in the cases she had been faced with incontrovertible evidence of their wrong-doing, she had not hesitated to punish them.

 

In that respect, she had been kinder to Snape than Dumbledore had been.

 

Yet just as often, it was he who was punished for some attempt to recover his pride—some little act of vengeance. He had been lectured to by so many teachers that by seventh year, he had learned merely to stare contritely at one corner of their desk and hope for his sentence as quickly as they deigned to give it.

 

It had been clear to him from the first that he did not really matter to his professors. He was just another quiet, sullen boy who did not speak in class and didn’t make a fuss—who seemed to cringe away from any attention—and who only drew the wrong kinds of attention over acts of delinquency. He had not trusted adults from the first; he knew them for what they were: stupid, untruthful and temperamental.

 

They would always be drawn to boys like James Potter of course, charming and well-spoken with the best kind of manners. Professor McGonagall had been no different. She had been overjoyed that such a talented Quidditch player had been sorted into her house. _And_ he had been more talented than any other student in his year at Transfiguration.

 

McGonagall had done nothing except confirm Snape’s views that all adults were alike.

 

When Snape had returned to Hogwarts only a few years after his own graduation, at first as an assistant to Slughorn, McGonagall had treated him warily. All the other teachers had treated him warily. It was to be expected, given all they had heard of his doings during the war and insistent way that Dumbledore had imposed him upon them. Yet despite that inauspicious beginning, they had come to a good understanding. He had observed her ways of controlling a class and hoped to emulate her. She grew to trust his judgement in most things.

 

In recent years, a kinder person would have described them as friends. But no one would have described Snape as a kind person.

 

“Severus,” McGonagall said, “you need to do something. I know you well enough to know that you hate being bored—give me credit for knowing you that well. You should work for Kingsley—think of the endless supplies of ingredients and ability to bypass international prohibited substances laws.”

 

“Professor,” he said, “you are trying to appeal to a Slytherin. But you are a hopeless Gryffindor. You may as well appeal to the shreds of goodness in me. Let me disabuse you—”

 

McGonagall rose to her feet, setting her empty teacup on the table with a clunk. “Take the bloody job, Severus. You may have a twisted notion of what you are or are not due and what your duty is, but I don’t want to be scraping you out of an overgrown hovel in a few months.” She frowned critically down at him, “You’re not eating.”

 

Snape scowled and shrugged, looking like a sulky teenager again.

 

“Happy New Year—and Happy Birthday,” McGonagall said quietly, laying a hand briefly on Snape’s shoulder.

 

He repressed the urge to recoil. Minerva clearly sensed his unease and offered a slender, warm smile but withdrew her touch.

 

* * *

 

 

The wind was hushed, rushing past the exterior of their hovel. Euphemia was already asleep on the only reasonable surface, a battered looking couch, which left Rodolphus with the half-rotted floor.

 

After fleeing Paris with the Ministry lackeys on their tail, they had found themselves without a clear idea of where to go. Any number of safe houses associated with other Death Eaters were now likely to be monitored with the full might of the Auror Office after them. Rodolphus was only thankful that the Dementors were no longer under the employ of the Ministry.

 

He was angry with Rowle above all. She was supposed to have thought everything through. But the girl had gotten the better of them yet again. The bloody girl who lived. The girl who lived to torment Rodolphus and frustrate everything he wanted. He hated the girl.

 

But he also hated Rowle. Rowle for losing them the most precious thing. The girl of the prophecy. The girl who would bring his Dark Lord back from the unmarked grave they put him into and remake the world again. In the proper image. Pure and unmarred by filthy ideas.

 

Now where were they but cast out into an exile of their own making again? Stuck in some shack in a holiday village France. It would only be a matter of time before they eventually found them.

 

They had nothing now—no plan, no child, no way of bringing the world to rights.

 

Rodolphus pressed his back into the cold floor. He stared up into the murky yellowing paint on the ceiling which was peeling away. Beyond, the crescent of the moon would be shining down. Shining upon the just and unjust alike.

 

His brother was dead. His friends were dead. His wife, much as they disregarded each other, was long dead. Those he knew who still lived were caught behind bars, stranded in a remote island.

 

He had wanted to care for the girl. Little Delphini who bore a Black family name, the daughter of his wife, the hope of a future. She even looked like her mother. There was something distant and aloof in her child’s face. A few more years though, and the child would have grown into a young woman. A young woman capable of leading a brand-new army. She would have been a wonderful figurehead with the look of both a young Tom Riddle and a young Bellatrix Lestrange.

 

Rowle gave a small groan in her sleep. She rolled over, her grey hair falling over her face. Rowle had been subdued since their escape. She had made no grand speeches and seemed to feel neither hunger or thirst. She seemed… flattened by the whole ordeal, as though some small part of her had been stolen away and she was no longer capable of mustering herself together as who she had been.

 

“Why are you staring at me, Lestrange?”

 

He had not noticed Rowle waking. But she was now looking at him with the whites of her eyes gleaming beneath hooded lids.

 

“I wasn’t staring at you,” he said.

 

“You were staring at me as though you wanted to kill me.” Her voice was rasping with sleep. There was no real humour in her voice.

 

“I would have done it.”

 

“I have no doubt that you would have—now that I am no longer of use to you, it would seem.”

 

“I could have done it already. But I am rather lacking in allies and beggars cannot be choosers. As the saying goes.”

 

“Oh, give it up,” she said, rising to prop her head up against her wrist. “Your misplaced loyalty is pathetic. Your Dark Lord is dead. The girl is gone—and good riddance. The cause is what remains.”

 

“The cause! The cause cannot stand without the Dark Lord.”

 

Rowle laughed, a laugh that sounded snide rather than mirthful. “There are many who believe in the cause who care nothing for your Dark Lord. We ought to visit my family in the south.”

 

Rodolphus felt more exhausted than anything else. “We’ll do whatever you think best,” he said. Then, setting his head on his pillowed arms, he fell asleep. He had dreams of a sickly yellow moon hung in the sky.

 

* * *

February 2006

 

Demelza came by Harry’s desk with a stack of papers that threatened to topple from her arms.

 

“Proudfoot wants to see you in his office. Also, these are for you.” Demelza set down the files on the only empty spot on Harry’s desk with an apologetic smile.

 

The Head of the Auror Office had been rather zealous of late in assigning Harry paperwork. She had been consigned to desk duties, it was true, and Proudfoot evidently didn’t believe in concealing the fact that it was mean to be a punishment.

 

“Sure, I’ll be there in a minute.” Harry set her quill back into the inkpot and stood up, straightening her slightly dishevelled robes.

 

“The Minister is in the office with him,” Demelza said in an undertone.

 

“Ah, I see. Thanks.”

 

As Demelza had warned her, the Minister was seated with Proudfoot in the visitor’s chair.

 

“Good morning, Minister, Proudfoot.”

 

“Thanks for meeting with us today,” Kingsley said, gesturing to the chair beside him, “Potter, Sit down.”

 

Harry took a seat, her face turning curiously from one man’s face to another.

 

“How can I help you?”

 

“We wanted to tell you something before it became public knowledge,” Proudfoot said.

 

Harry raised an eyebrow.

 

“Proudfoot is resigning as the Head of the Auror Office.”

 

The man in question sighed heavily. “I’m getting too old for this, Potter. I don’t want to end on a low point with Lestrange and Rowle still on the run. A mistake by all means. All of it has leaked to the media, of course, and there’s nothing we can do about that. I will remain until they are captured and tried. It will be an end to the whole bloody war at last.”

 

Harry frowned. Proudfoot was looking rather tired, she noticed. There were lines around his mouth and dark circles around his eyes. His hair was greying and thinning. A look of frustration seemed to be etched permanently into his face.

 

“I am sorry to hear that, sir,” Harry said. “You have done what was needed of you through very difficult times. I am sure that everyone in the Office will be sad to see you go.”

 

The words were not entirely true. Harry did not very much like Proudfoot. She respected him as an experienced Auror who usually made sound judgements—but he was hard headed and unbending, always a little too self-righteous for Harry to really _like_ him as a leader. On other issues, Proudfoot had been resolutely apolitical, when Harry believed that he should have taken a more forthright approach.

 

But she would be sad to see him go. He was always reliable; and she had gotten used to him.

 

“You appreciate that we are telling you ahead of your colleagues because we wish to offer you the position,” Kingsley said, looking meaningfully at Harry.

 

“But you don’t know whether you’ll be able to find Lestrange and Rowle yet!” The words burst out of Harry nervously.

 

“Am I meant to take that as a desire to take my job immediately, Potter? Or your wish that you shall never have to take over my job?” Proudfoot offered her a wry sort of smile.

 

“Do I have to give you an answer now?” Harry said hastily.

 

“I understand that the Minister has already raised the issue with you?”

 

“He has,” said Harry. “I have not decided.”

 

“I understand Potter; you have things that you will need to think of now. You have applied for formal guardianship of the Lestrange girl, I believe?”

 

“Yes, I have Minister.” Harry directed a defiant look at Proudfoot at that, who was looking rather displeased or maybe even disgusted. “I am thankful that she is such a calm child.”

 

“I must say,” said Kingsley, “it is rather a brilliant idea of yours. No one could object to it—well they shall find it particularly hard to find an aa better guardian for the child. No one on _either side_ could really say anything of substantial disagreement—or raise any serious objections. I have to thank you for taking such a troublesome matter out of my hands.”

 

“The _child_ is not a _problem_ Minister, and I would thank you not to speak of her that way.”

 

“You’re quite right, of course,” Kingsley smiled indulgently. “But you do have her to think of now. We will announce Proudfoot’s forthcoming retirement a week from today. If you could provide me with your response by then…”

 

Harry glanced from Proudfoot’s still-scowling face to Kingsley’s mild smile. Had Kingsley just manipulated her? This was his politician’s face showing. As much as she respected Kingsley—as much as she believed that the man had their best interests at heart—he had not been one of Dumbledore’s best lieutenants for nothing. He had not been one of the most successful Ministers of Magic for nothing.

 

Mentally, Harry shrugged. Aloud, she said, “I accept your offer.”

 


	12. Doorways

February 2006

 

“No! Don’t!”

 

The sky was raining ashes around her. The air was heavy with smoke.

 

The bright green light streaked through the air and spilt into what seemed like a meteor shower in miniature. Where the light landed, there were frozen faces. Faces struck still and frozen on top contorted bodies like gargoyles.

 

Then, one by one, each figure fell to the ground.

 

Harry could do nothing but watch them. Above her, the red eyes of Lord Voldemort curved with horrible mirth.

 

“They died for you,” he said in his horrible hissing voice. “They died for the great Harry Potter. Because what? They believed in you? How foolish.”

 

Then, he was raising his wand in his corpse-white hand. He opened his mouth and screamed.

 

But it was not Voldemort who was screaming. Harry sat up in her bed; her pyjamas were damp with sweat. She rubbed her hands over her face, scrabbled for the lightswitch, and made to get out of bed—but froze. Delphi was staring at her from the door of Harry’s bedroom, clutching her favourite toy, a stuffed augurey.

 

“Did you have a nightmare?” The child asked with wide eyes, hesitantly coming towards Harry’s bed.

 

“Yes. I hope I didn’t wake you. I did have a nightmare,” Harry said. “Did you have a nightmare too?”

 

Delphi nodded shyly.

 

“Why don’t you come sit with me,” Harry said, pulling back the coverlets and patting the space beside her. “Will you tell me what happened in your nightmare?”

 

Delphi looked as though she wanted to speak for a moment, but then shut her mouth and shook her head resolutely.

 

“Do you think you could try to get back to sleep here?”

 

“Can—can you sing me a song?”

 

Harry wet her lips uncertainly. She was not a great singer and Delphi had never asked her to sing a song for her before. “Anything you have in mind?”

 

Delphi shook her head again. The only songs that Harry could call to mind were the ones which Aunt Petunia had sung to Dudley—never to her.

 

“Alright then… Let’s tuck you in first…” She began in a low, wavering voice as Delphi closed her eyes. Soon, Harry became engrossed in the tune. The smell of smoke and the grit of dirt in her eyes faded from memory. She focused on trying to make each note with her untrained voice.

 

When she had exhausted all the songs that she recalled, Delphi was breathing deeply, making little snuffling noises into the blankets bunched up in her fists. She did not seem deeply asleep, but she was asleep. Harry wriggled into her own blankets tentatively, so she did not disturb the child.

 

Someone was poking at her shoulder. Harry tossed herself onto her stomach and buried her face in her pillow. “Go ‘way,” she muttered.

 

“Oh, um,” said a small voice that definitely did not belong to Aunt Petunia or Hermione or Lavender Brown.

 

She opened her eyes reluctantly. “Morning,” she said.

 

“I’m hungry,” Delphi announced. “You said that we would make pancakes on Saturday.”

 

“And it is Saturday today, is it?”

 

“Yes,” Delphi said, with unusual forcefulness.

 

“Alright, I’m getting up,” Harry said, rolling gracelessly out of bed. “No more nightmares last night?”

 

“Nope.”

 

“Good.”

 

“Hurry up!”

 

“So pushy,” Harry said in mock complaint. But she pulled on her dressing gown and made her way downstairs.

 

The nightmares had never really gone away after the war. They usually were all along the same sort of themes—Harry saw her friends die more often than not, cursing her name for having brought them to their violent ends. Usually, she could not go back to sleep after she had such a nightmare. What a blessing singing had turned out to be.

 

* * *

 

 

Harry bent down over Hermione’s swollen belly, pressing her ear against the curve.

 

“I don’t think I can hear the baby at all—much less doing any sort of aerial manoeuvres. I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ron!”

 

Hermione chuckled as Ron said, “My fatherly senses cannot lie.”

 

“The Healers say that everything is as it ought to be at this point of the pregnancy. I’m so excited! I didn’t _think_ I’d be so excited!”

 

Harry smiled at her two best friends. “Tell me that we won’t become those parents who talk about nothing except their kids.”

 

“I can’t make any promises,” Ron said, “especially if this kid is as good at Quidditch as I predict.”

 

Hermione rolled her eyes and said, “Is Delphi enjoying muggle primary school?”  


“Yeah, I think so. Her teachers have been very good but she’s still very shy.” Harry shrugged; it had surprised her how easily Hermione and Ron had slipped into talking about Delphi as though she was Harry’s own child. She still didn’t know how to feel about that. All that she knew was that she did not want Delphi to feel the way she had all those years under Aunt Petunia’s roof…

 

“Kingsley tells me that you’ve accepted the promotion?”

 

“What promotion?” Ron said, “How come you didn’t tell me about this?”

 

“I was going to, it just happened yesterday though. Proudfoot is retiring,” Harry said, “Kingsley wants me to take over his position once he retires.”

 

“As Head of the Auror Office? That’s great!” Ron beamed; he seemed genuinely overjoyed for Harry. “You’ll be so good. Give those old fusty bureaucrats a good shakeup.”

 

There might have been a time that Ron would have been jealous, but they had all matured since Hogwarts. And Ron had not particularly enjoyed working as an Auror; he found the office stifling and the work far less interesting than anticipated. Ron had told Harry about a year after completing Auror training that he did not fancy ending up like his father, who had worked in his bureaucrat’s job for decades.

 

At Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, Ron had proven himself excellent at anticipating the types of tricks and gags that would most fascinate school-aged children—and outsell their competitors. He had fast become the business brains behind the operation, surprising everyone, but leaving a grateful George to work mainly on product development which was his passion anyway.

 

“I am glad that you accepted,” said Hermione, “I couldn’t imagine another person doing a better job than you.”

 

Harry blushed at the praise of her two friends. “I’m really flattered. I hope the rest of the office will see it that way too. I’d like to hire some new blood too. Anyway, Proudfoot isn’t going to be leaving until his last case—the one with Lestrange and Rowle—is finished and they’re both found.”

 

At the mention of Rowle’s name, Hermione had stiffened, and glanced furtively from Harry to Ron.

 

“Harry—you know…” Hermione began hesitantly, “I was doing some research on Rowle…”

 

“You found out something about her,” Harry said, knowing what Hermione would say next.

 

She had feared this precise moment. Harry had known that it would be impossible to hide the truth from her friends for very long—particularly Hermione with her penchant for finding things out and her closeness to Kingsley. But she was prepared. The words tasted bitter in her mouth but she was ready to say them.

 

“She was married to Fleamont, Fleamont Potter—your grandfather,” Hermione said in a whisper.

 

“Yes,” Harry said simply, but not looking up at her friends. “She told me so herself.”

 

“What!” Ron looked aghast. “I thought you didn’t have any family.”

 

“I don’t! She is no family of mine.”

 

Hermione reached out and pressed Harry’s hand in both of her own in silent solidarity.

 

“You two—you’re my family. The Weasleys are my family. Maybe even Dudley—we’ve been catching up and he’s an engineer now, of all things. But this Euphemia Rowle certainly is not my family. I didn’t tell you two because… it doesn’t matter. I don’t care that she’s _related_.”

 

“She _left_ you,” Ron said indignantly, “She disappeared and…”

 

“Maybe she didn’t have a choice,” said Harry, “but I don’t care about that. She helped Lestrange to almost kill three people. She treated Delphi horribly. She believes that all non-Purebloods deserve to die. Maybe she thought I should die because I wasn’t a Pureblood baby. It doesn’t matter. I just want to find her and…”

 

“Send her to Azkaban?” Ron suggested.

 

“Talk to her and find out why she did what she did?” Hermione offered.

 

“Both of those things,” Harry said. She ran a hand through her messy hair. “I don’t understand!”

 

“I know,” said Hermione soothingly. “I know, but we are your family.”

 

Ron agreed fiercely and drew the both of them into a hug. Harry was heartened by the rare gesture from Ron and allowed herself to feel reassured by the comforting weight of her friends. They were here, and they were solid and real, and they would not let her go. Tears slipped down her face, but they felt… right. She felt all right.

 

* * *

 

 

One week later, Monday, Harry strode from the lift, shaking the rain from her cloak and making her way towards her office and the piles of paperwork waiting for her only to bump into Neville Longbottom of all people.

 

“Harry!” He beamed at her, genuine pleasure lighting up his handsome face. “It is wonderful to see you. I’m really sorry I couldn’t make it to Christmas—but my gran, you know…”

 

Augusta Longbottom’s treatment of her grandchild had improved from what Neville has told his friends, but Harry still did not hold a particularly high opinion of Neville’s grandmother. “Of course, no worries mate. Hope you had a good holiday.”

 

“Well it is exciting to be here,” Neville said.

 

“I’m sorry but… What is it that you’re doing here?”

 

Neville had undergone Auror training after completing his N.E.W.T.s at Hogwarts and became an excellent field operative for several years. But last year, he had decided to take some time off to explore his other interests—namely Herbology.

 

“Oh, you didn’t know? I thought…” Neville frowned slightly, “Well, the new offices…” He gestured to the door.

 

Harry wondered how she could have missed it. What used to be a suite of rooms occupied by the Magical Transportation people had been refurbished. The sign on the door now read _The Office for Research and Investigation of Magical Substances_.

 

“Kingsley and Proudfoot did not tell me of this,” Harry said, frowning.

 

“You wouldn’t believe who asked me to be here,” Neville said, unaware or unaffected by Harry’s agitation.

 

“Who—” Harry began to say, but her question was answered when the door opened, revealing a typically scowling Snape. His look darkened further upon seeing Harry and Neville standing there in the corridor.

 

“Longbottom, there is work to be done,” Snape said, looking past Harry as though she wasn’t there.

 

“Uh, yes, Prof—Sir—um, Snape,” Neville grimaced before turning back to Harry. “Why don’t we meet for lunch at about one o’clock? I’ll meet you in your office.”

 

Neville had turned to follow upon Snape’s heels before she had a chance to respond.

 

Harry spent the rest of the morning sifting aimlessly though her files. She completed the more routine ones as though by rote. She thought about asking Proudfoot about what was happening with the new office but felt as though he would likely be horribly smug about it all. Thank Merlin he was retiring, she thought uncharitably. Followed by: how the hell to replace him?

 

She hoped that today wouldn’t be one of those days that Proudfoot had her shadow him to his meetings or insist on “showing her the ropes”. It wasn’t that she didn’t usually find those meetings useful… She just didn’t think she would be able to concentrate—not after…

 

Neville came into her office as promised at one o’clock. There were a few stray leaves and twigs in his hair and smudge of dirt on his jaw.

 

“You look like you’ve wrestled a tree,” Harry said.

 

“Just about! It’s been awful trying to get all the specimens we need in there. Ready for lunch—you know anywhere nice around here?”

 

“There’s always the canteen,” Harry said, but smiled at Neville’s look of distaste. “Our surest bet is in muggle London.”

 

Harry led them to a small pie shop and café that was her favourite place for lunch. A couple of blocks away from the Ministry so that no one was likely to overhear or disturb them. The other tables were crammed with muggle office workers and construction workers.

 

“I’m really happy to see you again, Neville. Sorry that we haven’t caught up more often.”

 

“Yeah,” said Neville, “but I’ll be working at the Ministry for about three days a week now. It’s a good arrangement—I’ve still got time to do my own research and work with Professor Sprout.”

 

“What exactly are you doing at the Ministry? And why is Snape ordering you around?”

 

“It’s funny, actually. Snape said that the Ministry was setting up this—project—well actually, out of the blue he just showed up at my house last week. I was freaked out. He said Professor McGonagall had recommended me.”

 

“Hold on a second, what is it that your uh, office does?”

 

“Kingsley has set it up himself. It’s a research and investigation office. The Ministry doesn’t have any expertise in magical substances, you know? Snape is rather good at potions but I’m better at magical plants and potions ingredients. He’s also asked Hestia Jones to work with us abroad, with more of the exotic stuff.”

 

“But Snape? He hated you—sorry, Neville.”

 

“That’s alright,” Neville said, “Yeah, I still remember when the boggart stepped out and looked like him.” He gave a self-effacing chuckle. “I think I just felt like… such a failure in Snape’s classes, you know? And with everyone—my gran—telling me how I wasn’t as good as my dad… I just… But seventh year was better. I mean, not during but afterwards, I could see that he never sent us to the Carrows to be tortured—or anything really.”

 

Harry nodded. She still felt horribly guilty that she had not been there, at Hogwarts, with her friends that last year. But what could she have done there? Perhaps her presence would have made it even worse for them…

 

“Anyway, when I went back to Hogwarts to finish my N.E.W.T.s and Slughorn let me do some independent study even though I hadn’t gotten into N.E.W.T. Potions, Snape let me use his labs. Not that he wasn’t a bastard about it. It didn’t seem to matter much anymore though. Probably because _classes_ didn’t seem so important anymore and I knew I wasn’t a horrible wizard.”

 

Neville smiled, and Harry could see that he was happy—and confident. This didn’t seem like the same boy bullied by an awful teacher.

 

“Anyway, the Office isn’t really a hierarchy. Not like I’ll be reporting to Snape. He is _responsible_ for the Office, but we’re just independent researchers. We’ll just get cases which Kingsley wants us to work on—maybe with the Auror Office, like poisonings or smuggling or whatnot—and the rest of the time we’ll all be doing our own research.” At that, Neville bit into the sandwich he had ordered.

 

Harry gave her own soup a tentative stir. Her friend really seemed excited. She was happy for him. And yet the knot in her own stomach would not unravel.

 

“You’ll be working the Auror Office on cases?”

 

“Yeah, we’ll be helping. It’s exciting, isn’t it? I bet you don’t want to see Snape around though,” Neville said, an awkward smile in a corner of his mouth.

 

“No,” Harry agreed—although to what extent she did not want to see him around, Neville couldn’t know.

 

“Well, you don’t have to talk to him. He didn’t talk to me all day except to tell me to get to work or move my plants here or there.” Neville laughed, “Let’s not talk about work anymore, we’ll have plenty more time to catch up. How have you been recently?”

 

Harry blew on her soup to cool it down. “I’m alright,” she said, “you heard that Ginny and I broke up?”

 

“Yeah,” Neville said, looking a little sheepish, “Luna told me. I’m sorry about that. I hope you’re alright… I’m not the best at this but if you want to talk to someone…”

 

“It’s alright—I won’t demand it of you,” Harry said with a laugh. “Anyway, I’m fine now.”

 

The Ministry hadn’t released the details of what had happened when Harry had gone missing for that week. In the official record—and the unofficial gossip being spread as broadly as possible—Harry had had personal problems and had gone away to convalesce. The credit for tracking Lestrange and Rowle down had gone entirely to Higgs. Glad for the Ministry’s sense in covering up their own initial suspicions over Snape, Harry was not displeased about any of it. She was used to finding her private life in the pages of _The Daily Prophet_.

 

Her friend still looked a little uncomfortable. Harry said, laughingly, “Didn’t you used to have a bit of a crush on Ginny?”

 

The tips of Neville’s ears turned a bit pink. “Well we went to the Yule Ball together… But she told me she wasn’t interested in me _like that_ , so I left it alone. Anyway, it’s been ages, I’m seeing someone now.”

 

“Are you going to tell us about it?”

 

Neville grinned, lifting his sandwich to his mouth. “Not yet. You’ll only tease me about it.”

 

“Come off it, Neville! Would we?”

 

“Probably not,” he said, “but it’s getting serious and I don’t want to… Well, you’ll find out soon enough anyway.”

 

Harry made a humming sound that clearly said Neville’s circumstances would not be forgotten. “Anyway,” she said, “Welcome to the Ministry. You’ll find the bureaucracy balanced out by various other sources of frustration.”

 

* * *

 

 

Rowle’s grey hair grew wild in the wind. She wrapped her arms tightly around her body as she strode ahead of Lestrange.

 

Rodolphus took the time to observe their surroundings. Provence really was particularly beautiful. He had not been here since the long summers he remembered from his childhood. Back then, he and his brother had taken the opportunity to roam the countryside, imagining themselves to be in a world which they owned.

 

Rowle turned to look at him over her shoulder. “We’re almost there,” she said, “I can feel the magical barriers starting to strengthen.”

 

“Sure,” Rodolphus said indifferently.

 

They were at the outskirts of a town now. He could see the red-orange orange roofs of the houses below. The house they were headed to was set into the hill, surrounded by a vineyard. Even Rodolphus could feel the strange, ancient magic of the place, built up by centuries of witches and wizards. He felt loss, so keenly that he wanted to keel over.

 

Rowle had stopped. She threw up a hand, gesturing that he should also stop.

 

“What is it?”

 

“Our hosts are coming to meet us,” she said.

 

There was a man striding towards them, seemingly unarmed. He wore linen trousers and a loose cotton shirt and a straw hat over his head. As he came closer, Rodolphus could see that his eyebrows were dark in a sun-darkened face, beneath a head of silvery hair.

 

“Monsieur Vincent,” said Rowle, evidently recognising the man.

 

The man’s bland expression did not change. “Madame, Monsieur,” he said, “I was not expecting anyone.”

 

The man’s voice was pleasant, his English slightly accented.

 

“Can we come in?”

 

His eyes flickered to Rodolphus’s face, then back to Euphemia Rowle and finally to the white door of his own house.

 

“Why of course. Welcome.”

 

Rowle thanked the man. They conversed but Rodolphus did not bother following their conversation. The air tasted warm from the sun. It had not snowed here.

 

Why were they hiding? What did they have to hide from? Rowle had done nothing more in the last two decades of her life but move from one hiding place to another, seeking refuge under the roofs of ungracious hosts.

 

Why should they have to hide when they had the right way of the world? People like _Potter_ deserved to hide from them. Pathetic traitors and half-bloods like Snape deserved to hide from them. Since when did the hunters become the hunted?

 

“I’m sorry that you did not visit in spring or summer,” the man was saying to Rowle. “The fields were very beautiful then.”

 

“They’re beautiful now,” Rowle reassured him with a smile. Then she was reaching forward for his hand, drawing his face close to her own as their conversation continued.

 

Rodolphus could not hear the words which they were saying. He had a fair notion that they were speaking in French. His own French was rusty. Their tones however, were unmistakable. Rowle was speaking urgently. Vincent was nodding but he was distant as before.

 

Really, the day was beautiful. The wind cut through his cloak, but the sky was bright and the sun was brighter. Beneath his robes, Rodolphus was skeleton thin. He felt a sort of hunger that was deeper than flesh. It was a sort of lack that could not be filled with anything so mundane as food. It was a sort of lack that could not be filled at all.

 

It was a sort of lack that spoke of something ripped from the very soul of him. Something that even the Dementors had been unable to take. Perhaps it had flowed out of him gradually; perhaps it had emptied out from him all at once. He tried to the feel the fervour still—the fervour that had driven him to kill and hurt but it was faded. It felt like the afterimage of a once-bright star.

 

His Dark Lord was gone. His child was gone. He found himself now in the place where his childhood hates had taken root. Here, he and Rabastan had formed the shapes of their lives. Not here, in this precise spot, but in the same sea air, in the summers here. Here, they had first felt that the world had belonged to them. The same sense of stillness and certainty they felt that they needed to bring to the now-chaotic world in which they found themselves unsure.

 

“Come in, please,” Monsieur Vincent was saying, holding the door open for Lestrange.

 

Rowle had unclasped her travelling cloak and held it in the crook of her arm. She looked at him beneath raised grey eyebrows.

 

“Thank you,” Rodolphus said belatedly.

 

“Not to worry,” Vincent said. “Come in and seat yourselves by the fire, please. I will just go upstairs to tell my wife that we have guests. She remembers you, Euphemia.”

 

Rowle walked to the room where he was gesturing, running one hand through her wind-swept hair, her heels tapping on the tiled floors. Rodolphus glanced around the ancient house in which he found himself. A spiral staircase ran up to the higher levels. The walls were cluttered with magical portraits and several unmoving landscapes of the surrounding areas.

 

“Go sit down, Mr Lestrange,” said his host. “You look cold. There’s bread still warm from the oven in the kitchen, and cheese. I’ll bring it to you later.”

 

“I will,” he said, and followed Rowle to the sitting room. He could hear the fire crackling in the grate, even here. It beckoned.

 

* * *

 

 

“Hey! Potter!” Proudfoot called.

 

Demelza rolled her eyes. “You should go. Not retiring a moment too late. He’s been itching to get out of here for months…”

 

“Thanks!” Harry said, following Demelza from her office and shutting the door on the piles of her paperwork.

 

Proudfoot was standing behind his desk already, with his chair pushed in and a file under his arm. “The Minister wants to look at this case. I thought you’d want to come with me to see how these meetings go. Come on, let’s walk and I’ll brief you on the way.”

 

Harry followed in Proudfoot’s wake as he made his way over to the elevators.

 

“So, I had assigned the case to Savage. You know how he is. Anyway, we’re going on no real leads at the moment. Oh right. It’s some sort of smuggling operation. We found a case of Erumpent Horns on a tip off but there’s nothing to go on. You can imagine that the Trade Office is not happy about this. A Class B Tradeable Material slipping through their fingers like that.”

 

The elevator stopped with a small chime of the bell and the doors sprang open.

 

“The Minister wants to go about this a new way.”

 

“A new way—” Harry started to say, but she quickly understood what Proudfoot meant when the door to the Minister’s office she saw Neville and Snape seated around the meeting table.

 

Kingsley looked up at them, “Take a seat, Proudfoot, Potter.”

 

Neville was smiling at her from across the table. Harry returned his gestured, trying desperately not to seem conscious of the other unexpected participant in the meeting.

 

“So,” Kingsley was saying in his deep, serious voice, “we will all see how our experiment with the Office for Research and Investigation of Magical Substances turns out, won’t we?”

 

Perhaps his comment was directed at Snape, but there was no response from him. It was Proudfoot who instead interrupted with an interjection.

 

He was squinting at Snape in obvious dislike. “I hardly see how _he_ —they—can help in this matter. There are no damned potions or plants involved here. I can reassure you that the Auror Office—”

 

“Thank you, Proudfoot,” Kingsley said, “we have discussed this already. Savage is not progressing with the usual methods. This is the whole _raison d’être_ of this new Office. We will not reopen this discussion and my decision is final.”

 

Proudfoot’s weathered face was frozen in an expression of distaste, but he fell silent.

 

“Let’s discuss what we understand about this case so far. You will understand that the Office for Trade is extremely unhappy. The usual number of Erumpent Horns passing into Britain is less than six per year. To find almost double that number in one place—”

 

“You are quite wrong,” Snape interrupted smoothly.

 

“I beg your pardon?”

 

“You are wrong. The amount of Regeneration Potion sold in Knockturn Alley in the last few years would suggest that there have been at least three times that number coming into the country.”

 

Kingsley’s eyes glimmered with a sign of triumph which Harry was sure only she noticed.

 

“How would you know anything about that, Snape?” said Proudfoot belligerently.

 

“Personal use,” Snape sneered, gesturing to the twisted scars in his neck. To Proudfoot’s credit, he did not turn away. “Of course, I would not rely on the work of _inferior_ brewers. And I assure you that my ingredients come from reliable, legal suppliers. Or would you prefer to check my records?”

 

The look on the old Auror’s face very much suggested that he _would_ prefer to check Snape’s records. But Kingsley quelled him silently.

 

“Very well,” the Minister said, “I understand you can begin to employ some of your methods. I expect that you should report to me, and I will convey your findings through to the Auror Office, Snape, Longbottom.”

 

Snape nodded rather indifferently, his lip curling only slightly in Proudfoot’s direction.

 

“Savage is not reassigned from the case, rest assured.” Kingsley’s voice had a tone of finality to it. He gestured for the Head Auror to give his case files over to Snape, which the older man did begrudgingly.

 

The Minister stood up, the other four could only do likewise. They walked in stony silence to the elevators together as Kingsley Shacklebolt was whisked away by an assistant to another meeting.

 

“Look Snape, no one has ever accused me of not being straight with people, so I’ll tell you this,” Proudfoot said, “I really didn’t like the idea of this new Office of yours, and I really don’t appreciate this. Potter’s going to be watching what you’re doing for me. Making sure that you don’t do anything… underhanded.”

 

Harry started. If she was going to be doing anything, this was the first she was hearing about it.

 

Before Snape could say anything however, Neville said earnestly and with a smile that did not seem vicious to the unsuspecting, “We welcome your scrutiny, sir.”

 

Neville really was a miracle worker. Harry risked a glance over at Snape, whose face was unreadable—but Harry thought he could have been repressing a smile.

 

When the elevator reached their shared floor, Harry almost sighed in relief.

 

 


	13. Thresholds

February 2006

 

Rodolphus was staring into the fire when he heard them. They were whispering in French. _I will take the back. Fan out around the property. Call them. We’re ready._ They were not quiet enough.

 

Beside him, Euphemia Rowle had stiffened in her chair. Her wand was already in her hand, her other hand tucking wisps of her grey hair behind her ears. She shifted in her armchair, ready to rise at any moment.

 

His own wand was within reach in his sleeve. But he watched as the log in the grate hummed and crackled. The red mixed with grey and black ashes. The bright sparks and splutters threatening to escape the grate. Rodolphus’s hands still felt cold.

 

“Monsieur Vincent?” called Rowle, who had risen and walked to the doorway. “Is there anything wrong?”

 

The faint voice of their host sounded in the distance. “I’m coming down!”

 

And then it started. Rowle reeled backwards as a blast of bright white light shot past her head. She dashed across the room and crouched behind the arm chair.

 

“Cover me!”

 

Rodolphus felt the clumsiness in his hands. He fumbled for his own weapon, rolling off his armchair and lying on his stomach. The carpet was coarse against the skin of his face. Monsieur Vincent had promised him freshly-baked bread, he remembered briefly.

 

A dash of light streaked past the air above him. A binding spell. He waved his wand lazily in the direction it came from, producing a basic magical barrier.

 

“What the hell are you doing, Lestrange! Get up!”

 

He ignored Rowle. He flicked his wand again and produced a repulsion jinx. Still their assailants were hiding behind the door, refusing to make their faces known.

 

“Come out!” The words were torn out of his lungs with a scream. “I want to see your fucking faces—”

 

“Shut the fuck up, Lestrange—do you want to get us killed?” From her crouched position, Rowle was casting a series of strong protection charms around their vicinity.

 

“What does it matter? Is Potter here? I want to see the light die behind her eyes.”

 

Rodolphus was casting spells wildly at the door which led into the corridor. But there was the other door. A set of French windows opening outside. It was from those doors that their opponents finally entered. Five people dressed in the dark grey robes of French Ministry enforcers blasted the doors open, vanishing them entirely in fact. Three of them quickly combined to destroy their shields. Rowle was fast, but she was getting on—the tall, red-haired wizard was quicker. He managed to disarm her, though not before sustaining a rather nasty cut to his upper arm.

 

Rowle screamed when she was bound with cords. Lestrange’s counter-curse went awry. But then, he wasn’t trying particularly hard at this point. He was trying to summon enough energy to cast an Unforgiveable. Scanning the faces, he could not see Potter’s. The girl didn’t even care enough to make an appearance.

 

He was surrounded. Rodolphus found that he didn’t much care anyway. He conjured up a Cruciatus and aimed it at the tall wizard still checking Rowle’s bonds. The wizard twitched and fell to the floor. But even as his opponent fell, Rodolphus felt his wand soaring from his hand—flying in an arc and landing in the hand of Vincent, their supposed host.

 

His breath came heavy; darkness creeped at the edges of his vision.

 

Rowle screamed again. “How dare you!”

 

Vincent glanced between his two supposed guests emotionlessly. “Did you think that I would let you stay here? I was warned that you would be coming here.”

 

Lestrange was restrained by two enforcers; he was not resistant. There was nothing more that he could do. He turned his face to the fireplace, where the fire had burned down. There were only embers now and low, spluttering flames.

 

“No, stop,” Vincent said, “I’d like to speak to them.”

 

“What do you want to say? Traitor.”

 

“Euphemia, I wonder just who you believe I am a traitor to? I never believed in your Lord Voldemort.” Here, his gaze roamed contemptuously to Rodolphus. “I don’t believe I owe anything to you—or you.”

 

“You promised to—”

 

“You assumed,” Vincent said in a flat voice, “You assumed that I am like you. You assumed that I would harbour you for no other reason that we were once friends, and that you believed that I still believed what you believed.”

 

“Shut up. Shut the fuck up,” said Rodolphus tiredly.

 

But Vincent seemed as though he was not inclined to pay attention to Lestrange’s demands.

 

“You two are of the past. You’re loud and brash in your hate. Maybe you should’ve closed your mouths. Don’t be surprised that I’ve handed you over. I’m just looking out for myself.” A smile finally came across Vincent’s bland face. He straightened his rumpled shirt and trousers. “I live amongst the muggles here. I’m surrounded by muggles.”

 

“You disgust me,” said Rowle.

 

“The feeling is mutual.”

 

Vincent was waving the enforcers away. And the enforces were taking their prisoners with them. It still wasn’t over. Rodolphus closed his eyes and thought again how cold his hands were.

 

* * *

 

 

Snape woke up in the early dawn to the pecking of an owl at his window. It had been months—years—since he had been woken up in such a manner. Never a sign of good news.

 

He untied the roll of parchment from the barn owl’s leg and read news of the capture of Rodolphus Lestrange and Euphemia Rowle in the south of France.

 

The bird lingered on the window ledge waiting for a response, but he sent it away with a swat of his hand. The parchment, he smoothed out on his bedside table.

 

There was no possibility of returning to sleep now. He had been waking up too early as usual, anyway. There was nothing to do except get dressed and allow the day to begin. Since Minerva McGonagall’s intrusive visit, he had tidied the house somewhat. It now resembled a more properly inhabited dwelling. Downstairs, his books were no longer stored in the cardboard boxes he had brought over in haste from Spinner’s End but properly categorised on new bookshelves.

 

His wardrobe was still full of his teaching robes. They were well-suited to a cold Scottish castle, but far less well suited to days spent working in a laboratory. He chose a pair of black slacks, a plain white shirt, a knitted jumper and an overcoat from the back of his wardrobe instead, trying not to think too much just when it started to matter what he wore again.

 

It didn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter. But it didn’t matter that it maybe mattered a little bit.

 

The hallways of the Ministry of Magic were empty when he arrived. He checked his pocket watch: six o’clock in the morning. But before he could step into his office, the door opened, and Henrietta Potter’s face peered out at him. Her arm shot out and beckoned him inside.

 

“Potter!”

 

She made a small hushing motion. “Did you get my message?”

 

“That was your message?”

 

“Yes! I wanted to let you know before—” But Harry’s green eyes widened and her mouth clamped shut.

 

“Before?”

 

“Minister Shacklebolt,” Harry said.

 

Snape spun around to find Kingsley staring at the two of them.

 

“I see Potter has anticipated me,” he said wryly. “But if the news is already out, then I should just tell you. Lestrange and Rowle have been detained by the French Ministry. No doubt Potter has told you and that is why you happen to be here so early in the morning.”

 

“Uh, Minister—”

 

“No doubt,” Kingsley continued in a quelling voice, “Potter was just getting to the point. They will be brought back to London and they will face a trial and be sentenced. You will be required to provide evidence in front of the Wizengamot in the trial of Lestrange and Rowle.”

 

Snape frowned. “Do you believe I would be unable to stand up to the challenge?”

 

“It’s not that,” said Potter, biting the corner of her lips, “the Wizengamot is likely to ask you about the Death Eaters. I just thought—if you didn’t want to—”

 

Kingsley interrupted Potter swiftly, “I believe you should stop yourself there, Potter. What you were going to say… You would have come perilously close to conspiring to perjure yourselves in front of the Wizengamot.”

 

Snape’s scowl deepened as he glanced between Potter and the Minister. “Thank you, Shacklebolt. I appreciate the notice. I trust counsels for the Wizengamot will be in contact with me directly, as necessary.”

 

Kingsley nodded, spared one more glance to Potter, and then departed in a swirl of robes.

 

“I’m sorry, Professor,” said Potter, sounding for all the world as though she had failed a dear friend.

 

“I am no longer your Professor, as I have informed you.” Snape was surprised by the bewilderment in his own voice.

 

“I tried—no—I wanted to—” Potter wrung her hands in her lap. “I’m sorry.”

 

“I cannot comprehend why you are apologising. Was this not the desired outcome?”

 

“Capturing Lestrange and Rowle sure,” Potter said dismissively, “I regret that I couldn’t be there but…”

 

She slammed her hand down on the table, making the glass vials and beakers jump.

 

“What do you mean by this?”

 

“I wanted to help you—don’t you see? Now you’ll have to speak in front of the Wizengamot.”

 

“I still fail to understand you, Potter. Do you believe that I would come into danger in any way by appearing before the Wizengamot?”

 

“Yes! I mean—no! They’ll ask you about—Voldemort… They’ve never been happy that you were never convicted.”

 

It suddenly dawned on Snape what Potter was actually trying to apologise for. “You are afraid that they will ask about my participation in the war? My youthful mistakes? You believe that I shall be discredited? I assure you, I am quite capable of withstanding—”

 

“What about the media,” Potter interrupted.

 

“I believe you are aware of Rita Skeeter’s abominable book?”

 

“Oh, yes—I suppose so. But—but my mother…”

 

Snape froze. “Your mother?”

 

“What if they—”

 

Snape’s voice fell to a whisper; his black eyes glittered. “You gave me cause to believe that _what you saw_ was held in the strictest confidence.”

 

“I have—I mean, I never told anyone anything about that—I cleared your name. Kingsley gave you a pardon—”

 

“Then _why_ would the Wizengamot be concerned with such things? I will provide testimony on what I know of Rodolphus Lestrange. And recent affairs. Isn’t that the case?”

 

“I just—I just want to protect—“

 

“I do not _need_ you to do—whatever it is your misguided mind has determined that I require.”

 

She was still; and then she finally gave a small nod, as though having given herself an internal talking to. Silence stretched out.

 

Potter was looking up at him through her lashes. Her hand was still on the table, clenched into a loose fist. There was a half-healed cut on one of her fingers, a reddish-brown scab. There was a smattering of faint freckles across her cheeks which he had never noticed before.

 

Why should he notice now?

 

Lily had had freckles. They were prominent across her nose. Sometimes, he would try to count them under the sun, when they were talking. She might blush or she might tell him to stop looking at her funny.

 

“That was the first time you didn’t… I mean, about my mother. And I meant everything that I said before—that time I…”

 

Then, as though Potter’s courage had finally deserted her, she stood up and made for the door.

 

“Wait,” Snape said, surprising himself. “I would talk to you about her.”

 

* * *

 

 

6th March 2006

 

**Potter: Family and Foe**

**Rita Skeeter, Senior Correspondent**

 

Is Henrietta Potter, the so-called ‘girl-who-lived’ really as lily-white as most believe? Her recent mental break following a tense (according to my confidential sources) breakup with long-time beau ( _belle_ rather) Ginny Weasley suggests not. I have been saying for years that Potter is not quite right in the head—now the evidence comes to light!

 

My investigations at the Ministry of Magic reveal that Euphemia Rowle, accused accessory to three poisonings, assaulter of Magical Law Enforcement staff, and known Death Eater sympathiser, is related by blood to one Harry Potter.

 

Euphemia Rowle, with her distinctive grey hair and still sprightly physique and _strong family resemblance_ , is the paternal grandmother of Harry Potter and the mother of James Potter, who died at Voldemort’s hands in 1981 under circumstances which elevated Harry Potter to the aforementioned title of the girl-who-lived.

 

Euphemia Rowle is also currently being held in custody by the Ministry of Magic for her participation in the high-profile events in September 2005. This reporter understands that preparations for her trial in front of the Wizengamot are well under way. More updates are sure to come from this particular quill. Stay tuned.

 

In the meantime, how are Potter’s legions of fans taking this particular twist? A source who does not wish to be named calls for Potter’s immediate resignation from her job as Senior Auror, calling into question her integrity, bloodline, and very sanity. Other sources who wish to remain anonymous shared their disappointment.

 

What now for Potter who must now live down her dastardly connections?

 

_Next week: Rita Skeeter delves deep into Henrietta Potter’s episodes of mental instability; she speaks to Potter’s bewildered and jilted acquaintances._

 

* * *

 

 

Harry shifted from one foot to another. She took a deep breath and leaned down to smell the rosemary beside the steps. The door swung open to see Snape looking down his long nose at her.

 

“Potter,” he said.

 

“I’m expected today,” she said, straightening up and smiling sheepishly.

 

Snape held the door open for her. If he did not seem particularly welcoming, then at least he did not seem openly belligerent.

 

As soon as Harry stepped past the threshold, she realised that the cottage looked different. It had looked like a squatter’s place before—or maybe a particularly dingy holiday house where no one actually lived. Now it seemed like a place that someone might live. There were still disgusting things floating in jars everywhere, but you couldn’t expect that Snape wouldn’t impose his personality on the place.

 

Even the curtains looked as though they had been cleaned. And when Snape led her into the kitchen, she was surprised to find that there was a proper dining table with four plain chairs surrounding it.

 

“You needn’t have prepared for my visit!”

 

Snape gave her a withering look. “I assure you, it has nothing to do with your anticipated presence,” he said coldly.

 

“Oh well. Then, can I have a cup of tea?”

 

Snape set the kettle to boil and seated himself opposite to her.

 

“You should come over to Grimmauld Place—oh, unless… Sorry I didn’t think that…”

 

Snape raised a single eyebrow. “You seem to labour under the impression that I am somehow fragile, Miss Potter. I assure you that I am not that. Grimmauld Place does not hold pleasant memories, but I would not decline your offer on that account.”

 

“You would decline on some other ground then?”

 

Harry thought he might have been holding back a smile when he said, “Only the prospect of your inane company.”

 

“Alright, fine.” Harry watched as Snape dropped several teabags into a teapot and made a thoroughly mediocre pot of tea, pouring it out into two mugs and not bothering to offer her milk or sugar.

 

“I have something for you,” Snape said abruptly.

 

“Oh?”

 

He went to his bookshelf and returned with a slim volume in his hands. What seemed to be a textbook.

 

“ _The Standard Book of Spells_ ,” Harry read. “I already have a copy of this.”

 

“Open the book, Potter.”

 

She gasped when she opened the cover and found the pages covered with handwriting. When she looked closer, she saw that they were whole conversations—the types of things that might be in a note passed back and forth between friends.

 

Harry flipped fervently through the pages and found most of them to be annotated. “I never thought…”

 

She remembered her own textbooks, marked as they were by Ron and Hermione’s occasional scribbles. Her mother had done the same when she had been at Hogwarts. Harry felt as though she were about to cry.

 

“No one has ever… That is… No one has given me anything of her before.”

 

“Take it.”

 

Seven years ago—and Snape had been lying in a puddle of his own blood, tears and something more flowing down his face, Harry’s fingers pressed against the wound in his neck, her heart racing as quickly as his pulse.

 

“I can’t thank you.”

 

“It is unnecessary.”

 

Harry searched for some sign in Snape’s face. He was expressionless. His eyes were half-lidded as though he wanted to shut them. She wished, not for the first time, that she was halfway decent at Legilimency.

 

“What did you two talk about?”

 

Snape continued to look at her, a flat look behind his eyes. He tipped his head to the side, thinking.

 

“What do all insipid children talk about? Nothing of consequence.”

 

“What was she like?”

 

Snape sighed; he sounded bone weary. “You can read, can’t you?”

 

“It isn’t the same. I know you didn’t promise to tell me anything or to talk… But there’s hardly anyone who can tell me anything about her. What if you didn’t know your mother?”

 

“I might have benefitted from her absence,” Snape said. But seeing the hurt look in Potter’s eyes, he felt compelled to say, “It is not the same, certainly.”

 

“I went to Cokeworth, you know,” Harry said. “I went to my grandparents’ old house. Aunt Petunia told me the address. The town… I walked around. I could see why Aunt Petunia wanted to leave as soon as she could. Even Little Whinging would seem better in comparison.”

 

Snape blinked slowly, imagining Potter glancing down at the still-dirty river, wondering past the abandoned factory houses in untidy rows, and no doubt sticking her nose into Spinner’s End.

 

The image was repulsive in a way that Snape could not articulate, even to himself.

 

“I didn’t even realise until I got there that we had been there before. Before I started at Hogwarts and Aunt Petunia and Vernon were trying to escape the Hogwarts letters. We stayed at the Railview Hotel. I had to stay there again last time I went.”

 

“How did you find Cokeworth?” Snape said, filling the silence.

 

“Perhaps Aunt Petunia was right to think nothing magical could’ve followed us there. It was horrible.” Harry had hated how the place seemed like a ghost town, with its decaying mills, narrow streets, and weary-looking people. “I couldn’t imagine my mother growing up there! I couldn’t imagine any children growing up there.”

 

Harry didn’t know the words for the kind of poverty that seemed to pervade the town. Not merely in its rundown streets and mouldering buildings and the greyness of its shops—but in the feeling of neglect. It seemed a place that time—and important people—had forgotten, rendering it trapped and lost.

 

“What—what was it like growing up there?”

 

Through gritted teeth: “I do not _wish_ to discuss—”

 

“You don’t have to talk about _her_. What was it like for you?”

 

Snape sneered. “If you believe that I am likely to bare my soul to you, then—”

 

“Come off it, Snape! You should tell me, if anyone. I’ve already seen what it was like.”

 

“Then you will know that my father was a nasty muggle, my mother was a nasty witch. Together they never should have been parents—never should have married. They were arguing constantly. Neither of them believed in sparing the rod, and both of them could always think of excellent reasons why the fault lay with their child.”

 

Harry thought of all the times Aunt Petunia had blamed her for something that Dudley had done or something that was nobody’s fault. She had been forced to be the scapegoat every time.

 

Snape seemed almost reluctant to stop talking, now that the words were coming quickly to his lips. “There was not enough food, not enough clothes, not enough money. That would be what they fought about for the most part. Sometimes it was magic. Tobias would ask why we couldn’t have all these things with magic. We could have probably, but she was proud and spiteful. My mother worked in some sort of apothecary, leaving me alone with her textbooks and cauldrons. You do not have the luxury of having hated your parents, Potter.”

 

“No,” Harry agreed. “Are they dead now?”

 

Snape looked at her for a moment. “They are both as good as dead to me. My father died, and my mother left. She may have died since, but I certainly do not know of it. I have not seen her or spoken to her in decades.”

 

There was little to say beyond the look of disgust in Potter’s face. But Snape was long resigned to these facts. Recounting these details of his life were simpler and easier than he expected, given that so few people had ever asked about his childhood.

 

“Do not ask me where she might be, Potter, I do not know. Nor would I care to know.”

 

Harry could not imagine not wanting to know about your own mother—or not caring whether she may or may not be alive. But then, Snape did have the opportunity to know Eileen Prince. She had seemed like a cold woman in Snape’s memories of her. But sad too—as though ready to shatter at any moment.

 

Did Eileen Prince know about her son? Was she still alive? Did she still live in Britain? Harry could not help but be curious about these things. She wanted desperately to know, even when Snape would not admit to caring.

 

Snape was drinking his black tea, his long thin fingers curled around the porcelain cup. It had been unthinkably stupid to do what she had done last time—to kiss him. Yet, she could hardly suppress the desire to do so now.

 

She was not under any illusions about his attractiveness or his less than stellar personality. But there was something that she felt… It was not the same as what she had felt for Ginny. She could not describe it only knowing that she felt it with a kind of rare certainty.

 

Something of her confusion must have shown on her face because Snape was staring at her intently, the way he looked when he was trying to perform Legilimency.

 

“I don’t—I would want to know where my mother was,” Harry said, and because of Snape’s renewed look of anger, she added, “Was that why you joined Voldemort? Because she left?”

 

Snape scoffed, took another sip from his mug. “I was angry. There are no excuses an angry young person needs to join a group like the Death Eaters. It was a privilege. It was a necessity. I was friendless and the object of ridicule by the most _beloved_ students in the school. When one starts at the bottom, one is desperate for any means of reaching the top.”

 

“ _That’s_ your rationalisation?” blurted Harry. “Some sort of rags to riches story? You didn’t care about… Blood and all that?”

 

“Fuck,” Snape said, short and vicious, “Sure that mattered. Afterwards. It mattered. I want a fucking drink, Potter. Talking about this with _you_!”

 

“I just—I just want to know. When my mum—when she asked about being muggleborn, you said it didn’t matter. And then—”

 

“My sins are recalled to me. Did you not promise?” Snape laughed. It sounded deranged, mocking—of whom, Harry could not be certain.

 

“I just want to know. Please.”

 

Snape’s head was bent over his tea. His black hair fell in curtains, obscuring his sharp features. “I believed it, sure. I hated muggles. I thought they were inferior—evil, subhuman. I called everyone a Mudblood as a matter of course, as my Slytherin _friends_ did.”

 

Snape rubbed his long fingers over the bridge of his nose. Harry could not describe the look in his eyes.

 

“But I hated myself most of all,” Snape said, “I hated the weak, repellent boy. Slimy Snivellus.”

 

The wind whispered through the gaps in the window frames. It was as though he was carried back in time, lying on the floorboards beneath his narrow bed. The voices of his parents carrying through, floating upward. His stomach rumbling, a harsh stinging feeling in his throat that might have been hunger or might have been tears.

 

The words came to his lips of their own volition. It was as though the Potter girl’s presence had opened floodgates within him.

 

“I hated everything in my life. There was nothing good in it. No one ever told me that I was worth giving a damn about—I was a disgusting failure of a child, and only half a wizard.” His voice hardened. “Your father and his cronies saw fit to remind me of my worthlessness constantly.”

 

Harry watched the anger rippling across Snape’s face. His hands twitched restlessly in his lap; he kept looking down as though those hands belonged to someone else.

 

“They were wrong,” Harry said fiercely. “How can I tell you how wrong they were to do what they did? My father—”

 

“Do not—” Snape’s voice caught in his throat. He raised his hand to the knot of scar tissue on the side of his neck. “I do not want your apologies—your pity—”

 

“It isn’t pity that I’m offering! It’s—it’s compassion. I care about—no please, don’t turn away! Please.” Harry felt tears shining in her eyes, and her voice trembling. “You forget my memories. I _know_ what it’s like to be jeered at and tormented—and to be pushed around and despised by people who are supposed to care. But they didn’t. _They_ were wrong. They didn’t care for me and they didn’t care for you. Please.”

 

Her throat was tight. Snape had bowed his head so that she could no longer see his dark eyes. She exhaled sharply and seized one of his pale hands in hers. It was cold, but to her surprise, his fingers wrapped around hers. Their grip was tight.

 

“Believe me,” Harry whispered, “I do care about you. Not just because of everything—everything that’s happened but—but you deserve to have someone care about you. It doesn’t matter what happened—what you did—I’ve forgiven you. I forgave you a bloody long time ago. You’re brave. I know the person that you are… In—in your soul… That’s a person deserving of care and hope.”

 

Harry’s words dissolved into silence. She stared into the wood grain of the kitchen table, the swirls and eddies of lines.

 

Snape’s hand was white-knuckled in her own and he was shaking. Not just his hands but his whole body as though an electrical current were running through him. He slid out of his chair and fell to his knees. His hand still in hers—he appeared before her a penitent still—bowing his head until his face touched her knees.

 

The wetness of his tears seeped through the fabric of her trousers.

 

 


	14. Turnstiles

April 2006

 

Snape’s cottage was a mess again the next time Harry visited. Books had been pulled from the shelves and not replaced, abandoned or failed potions projects littered various surfaces and there were ingredients filling up every corner of the kitchen. The man himself had met Harry at the door with his usual scowl. She had noticed dark shadows underneath his eyes and a thinness to his cheeks that suggested he had stopped feeding himself regularly again.

 

“Are you alright?” she could not help but ask upon seeing him. When he made no response, she said, “How about a walk in your gardens?”

 

“That would be acceptable,” he said shortly.

 

It was a beautiful day for spring. The chestnut trees outside had marked the season with their delicate red-tipped blossoms. There was a soft floral scent in the air that Harry had noticed.

 

Snape was wrapped in a thick cloak despite the warmth.

 

“Come on,” Harry said when she saw that he dawdled. She proffered her arm gallantly—but he ignored this.

 

He had seized a basket, filled with a variety of glass containers and several handkerchiefs in which to collect potions ingredients.

 

“Come on,” Harry said again. This time Snape followed her out the door, looking rather conspicuous in his dark cloak and with the basket slung over his arm. He also looked rather endearing, Harry thought privately. She could not tell him this because he would not yet believe her.

 

She gestured to his heavy cloak. “Do you mind if I—you know just so if any muggles are in the vicinity?” At his sharp nod, she waved her wand discreetly and transformed his cloak into a long muggle style coat, complete with shining wooden buttons.

 

Snape led the way to his garden, where his plants were growing happily. “Let us start with the common ingredients,” he said.

 

“You can give me a refresher on basic herbology,” Harry said, hoping that inviting his teacherly comments might draw out some sort of conversation between them. He was evidently trying to avoid any sort of repeat of their last conversation. At the Ministry, he mostly ignored her in their shared meetings, which she was still attending with Proudfoot (much to her chagrin).

 

It was only with much reluctance that Harry had asked to meet him again at his house; to her surprise, he had not rejected her out of hand.

 

“Here,” Snape pointed to a brownish bush with clusters of dull yellow flowers growing close to the ground, “can you tell me what this plant is?”

 

“Dittany,” Harry said, recognising the thick brown stems and round, fat leaves.

 

Snape bent down to pick several blooms from the bush, dropping them in a small jar, before severing several stems and wrapping them in one of his white cloths.

 

They walked some little way along the path and Snape pointed to a patch of distinctive purple blooms standing up like sentinels. “These?”

 

“Aconite, otherwise known as monkshood or wolfsbane.” Harry grinned, “I have learned some things since my first year, you know.”

 

Again, he merely bent down to harvest the plant, taking care not to touch it with his bare hands, making no reply to Harry.

 

They continued in this vein as they wandered around the whole garden. Snape’s basket soon filled up with all manner of ingredients. Harry watched him, wanting desperately to change their conversation.

 

When Snape made as though to return to his cottage, Harry laid a hand against his arm. “Why don’t we go there. Walk to the town, maybe?”

 

“As you say,” Snape said. He stopped to set down the basket inside the cottage but emerged again, looking weary.

 

They walked down the path past the chestnut trees, emerging past the hedgerows and onto the winding road that led to the nearest muggle village. Harry kept up a determined stream of chatter, Snape frowning all the while.

 

“Look, there’s not much point just staring off into middle distance. Snape? Severus?”

 

The taste of his name on her tongue gave her a thrill.

 

Snape turned on her all of a sudden. A rather rattling old tractor rolled past behind him as he crowded her into the hedges. He was drawing himself up to his full height, doing the thing that she remembered from her time at Hogwarts, looming over her, trying to be threatening.

 

Harry was not scared, though he looked furious, though his face was white, and one corner of his mouth was twitching.

 

“I am not good, Potter! You are making me something—another one of your projects. I am not a _thing_ that needs saving.”

 

“That’s not what this is about,” Harry said, riling up at once. “Can’t you see that everything I told you last time was the truth?”

 

“You don’t understand,” Snape said. “You think—saviour Potter, swanning in, and everyone will fawn over you. Arrogant, foolish girl—”

 

Harry stopped him impulsively by planting her hands against his shoulders and leaning up to kiss him. He froze against her, one hand hovering in the air as though he wasn’t certain whether to push her away or to draw her towards him.

 

This time, he did not decide to push her away. His lips were soft against hers. His scent was one of the herbs they had picked that morning. She felt the gentle pressure of his fingers against the nape of her neck.

 

When she drew away, his face was still, his brows arched in surprise.

 

“Don’t tell me how horrible you are. Don’t tell me how awful you think you’ve been. Everything I told you is still true.” Harry pressed her hand against the curve of his jaw. “Believe me.”

 

“How can you understand what I did in service of the Dark Lord? How can you understand what I did, just so I would feel powerful? To feel a part of something? There’s nothing I could do to undo what I did.”

 

“You changed,” Harry said. “You’re not the same person you were when you did those things. I know—I know how hard it can be. To feel as though you failed yourself—failed other people. Not a week doesn’t go by when I don’t have dreams of everyone who died during the war. I see them die. Or I wake up thinking that I might see them again. I’m trying to forgive myself—you need to too—you do deserve that.”

 

Suddenly, Snape laughed, a low and rasping sound that was not exactly mirthful. “How ridiculous you are, Potter! Still the fool who wears her heart proudly on her sleeve. What a pair we are.”

 

_A pair_ , he had called them. Despite his disparaging tone… Despite the way that the hedges pressed prickles into her back… That made her smile.

 

* * *

 

 

Monday was dreary and slow. The morning passed in a blur of bleary-eyed paperwork for Harry as she slowly worked through the piles of papers which Demelza, as usual, had conveyed to her.

 

Demelza had also informed her that Sue had finally decided to return to work at the Hall of Prophecy; Harry promised to meet for lunch one of these days. Then, shyly, Demelza had told her that they were engaged to be married within the year. This had brought the only moment of genuine joy to Harry’s morning.

 

Soon, lunchtime rolled around and only when Neville knocked on her door did she remember their meeting.

 

“Hey! You busy? I can come back another time?”

 

“No, not at all. I’ll just put these away… Can’t look at them another minute.”

 

“How have you been?” Neville sounded tentative.

 

“Oh right. Rita Skeeter’s articles. You’d think I would be used to them by now. They just keep coming though, one by one, week by week.” Harry let out a strangled sigh and shouldered her bag, checking that her wallet was inside.

 

“I promise I haven’t spoken to her, Harry.”

 

“Don’t go denying it, Neville,” she said, “I’ll think you have a guilty conscience.”

 

“Who _are_ all these anonymous sources she says she has?”

 

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they were so anonymous she made them up wholesale. Anyway, where do you want to go for lunch? I’m thinking somewhere muggle.”

 

People were staring at them as they made their way through the long corridors. Poor Neville didn’t deserve to have people staring like they been hit with a particularly nasty Bat Bogey Hex. Staring at muttering underneath their breaths… Harry had a strong sense of unwelcome déjà vu.

 

Neville nominated a curry house they had visited some weeks before and Harry followed him. She was not ashamed—just irritated. In the almost-eight years since the war, she had managed to establish her own reputation in the Ministry and wizarding community at large. She was no longer merely known as the ‘girl-who-lived’ amongst all but the most recalcitrant. Now to have Rita Skeeter dredging up all that…

 

A breathy voice hailed them from behind: “Harry! Neville!”

 

Harry turned to see Hermione jogging to catch up to them, her curls bouncing chaotically and her rounded belly preceding her.

 

“Hermione? Come to lunch with us?”

 

“Yeah. Oh, sorry, it’s such a pain to try to walk quickly. Neville, how are you going in the new Office?”

 

“Yeah, good. We’ve done a trace of where we think the Erumpent Horns must have come from based on some of the materials we found in their storage crate.” Neville talked with Hermione enthusiastically about their discoveries as they walked. Harry nodded and listened with half an ear.

 

Rita Skeeter could do a lot of things, but it was not in her power to alter Harry’s friendships. She really didn’t have to pay much attention to Skeeter at all.

 

* * *

 

 

Delphi was restless that night. She had another nightmare and Harry sat up with her until she murmured and fell asleep against Harry’s side.

 

Harry fell into her bed exhausted in the early hours of the morning, not bothering to pull off her socks or brush her unruly hair. Her dreams proved to be just as disturbed and unhappy as Delphi’s must have been before they turned even stranger.

 

She was back _there_ , among the rows and rows of shelves. Silver orbs as far as the eye could see. The ceiling stretching above her, as though infinite. She was setting one foot in front of the other. One step and then another.

 

The shelves seemed to press in upon her, making her feel small and lost. But there was somewhere she needed to go. A soft voice. It sounded like Delphi, but it couldn’t be her—she was asleep in the bedroom across the hall.

 

It kept calling her; Harry kept walking. She kept walking until she saw it, the brightest glowing orb in the hall. Her hand reached out of its own volition, but the orb seemed to slip through her fingers as easily as incorporeal mist.

 

She had to see the orb. She didn’t understand how she knew, but she had to see the orb, hold it, and hear what it had to say.

 

Harry kept walking. The shelves continued to press in around her as though wanting to fold her into nothingness. One foot in front of another… No sound of footsteps. The voice—she couldn’t hear what it was saying. No words. Just a sort of sense—a sense that Harry _knew_ the voice somehow…

 

Then, all of a sudden, everything was clear. Everything came into focus. The shelves straightened, took on weight as though she were actually in the room. When she brushed a hand against one shelf, she felt the grain of the wood and the gritty dust.

 

The orb was right there. Just ahead. This time, when she reached out, she felt the cold smooth surface of the sphere. Her own hand was warm—hot—overly hot. The voice came all at once. Harry could not tell whether it was emitting from the orb or all around her or insider her head completely.

 

_When spares are spared, when time is turned, when unseen children murder their fathers, then will the Dark Lord return._

 

The voice was strange and inhuman yet familiar.

 

_When spares are spared, when time is turned, when unseen children murder their fathers, then will the Dark Lord return._

 

Memories stirred—but they came sluggishly—as though they belonged to other people. A woman dressed in shawls and beads clutching a desk. Her eyes wide and her voice strange. A man kneeling beside a keyhole, watching the woman speak… The voice so strange…

 

There was somewhere to go—someone needed to hear the words… The strange, cryptic words.

 

_When spares are spared, when time is turned, when unseen children murder their fathers, then will the Dark Lord return._

 

Harry woke with a jolt. Her fingers tingled as though burned but they looked perfectly normal. The back of her neck prickled with cold sweat but apart from that, there was no remnant of the dream. She rubbed her hand over her scar. Nothing. There was no pain there.

 

Just a dream. No need to pay attention to prophecies.

 

The sun was high in the sky and slanting into her bedroom window. She would be late to work, and Delphi would be late to her primary school. Her class teacher would subject Harry to that disapproving stare.

 

Running a hand through her hair, Harry tried to forget about the dream.

 

* * *

 

 

May 2006

 

Snape did not understand what this was. He did not understand Harry Potter. He did not understand what _they_ were.

 

It had been clear before. Well, as clear as he could make it. He made sure that Potter did not kill herself embarking on whatever foolhardy adventure she had set her mind to. That was his _one_ job. He did not have to be nice. He did not even have to care about her beyond the fact that she was Lily’s child, and he _owed_ Lily everything.

 

Her life, for starters. His life too, probably.

 

It was clear what he had to do. Prevent Voldemort from killing her. But of course, she was meant to die anyway. It was too late. He had always been too late. In the Shrieking Shack all he could think of was that at the end he had failed. He had not told Potter the truth. She would not know—and she would die—like a lamb to the slaughter. He had hoped that Lily could forgive him.

 

At least he would not have to live to see a world where Voldemort remade the wizarding world in his image.

 

But the girl had been there after all. His memory was hazy. How had she gotten there? It did not matter. All he had been able to think was that she must know the truth. He willed that he could show her the truth.

 

Afterwards, he thought the girl had forced him to drink something. A potion he should have been able to identify. Soon after, he had slipped into slumber.

 

There were dreams… Strange and distorted dreams of red, of flames. Someone weeping. But no one would weep over _him_. There was burning. Hellfire. But it felt cool. It washed over him like baptismal water. Wings maybe. Then the girl’s hands were shaking him awake again and she was shouting something like _He’s alive_ , but he still felt like death.

 

He did not understand what they were now.

 

Snape had no reason to care about her. It was done when she had not died after all. When she was the girl-who-lived all over again. He did not speak to her for seven years. He had not wanted to see her, or hear her, or know anything about her.

 

It was enough that she was alive. He did not really care about her. She was only Lily’s daughter and no more to him than that.

 

This did not explain why she had said all those things and then kissed him in the hedge row. This most certainly did not explain why he had allowed her to do so.

 

“Snape,” the girl was now saying irrepressibly.

 

He regretted agreeing to meet her after work. This came perilously close to… He didn’t know what to describe it. Courtship? Except that the purpose of courtship—that seemed incredible—he could not picture Potter…

 

“Are we going to go, or not?”

 

Half his life now seemed to be comprised of Potter chivvying him out of doors. The worst part was that Potter didn’t even have to convince him. Since he had abased himself so completely before her, he had resigned himself to her company when she requested it.

 

“You are the one with the knowledge of muggle London,” he said shortly, “Lead the way then.”

 

“You’ll like it, I’m sure.” The girl sounded confident. She was brimming with unsuppressed excitement. Her green eyes shone in the dark corridor of the rapidly-emptying Ministry building.

 

Snape wondered if she had watched him at meal times, noticing how he usually pushed food around his plate without eating more than a few bites. If someone asked him what food he liked, he honestly could not tell them.

 

If people stared at the pair of them as they walked through the Ministry, at least Potter ignored them. Her head was raised proudly, as though she cared nothing for their opinions. A futile message when the entire wizarding community had already made up their minds about you.

 

His own strategy was to appear as forbidding as possible. This he had cultivated since he had been a too-young teacher, with sixth and seventh-year students who still remembered him as the scrawny, slimy Slytherin runt.

 

“Here,” Potter said with a small flourish when they arrived. The door was painted navy and would have been rather unnoticeable had Potter not pointed it out.

 

As Potter pushed open the door, he was assaulted with a wave of noise and chatter. And suddenly, he was thrown back in time, sitting at the Hogwarts head table. He felt a surge of nausea.

 

“I do not wish to go in there,” he forced himself to say.

 

Potter frowned, deflating a little. “Is something wrong?”

 

“I do not wish to dine here.”

 

“Oh, well, sure.” Potter blinked rapidly and pressed herself against the wall as another couple pushed open the door.

 

“You have a house in London?”

 

“Yes—at Grimmauld Place, you know that—but I didn’t know we would be going back there—” Potter flushed suddenly and glanced away.

 

“We shall have dinner there.”

 

She cast a longing sort of glance at the door again. “But I already made a booking—” She caught a glance of Snape’s strangely blank face, “Sure, okay then.”

 

Harry grasped Snape by his elbow; they walked until they came to a small alley and Harry Apparated both of them to the small laneway behind Number Thirteen, Grimmauld Place.

 

“Here, we’ll go in the back door, it’ll take us to the kitchen. Delphi’s staying with Andromeda and Teddy for the night. I’ve probably got some leftovers.” She fumbled in her bag for her ring of keys.

 

Snape leaned against the wall, pressing the side of his face into the rough brick. He had not felt the panic that had bubbled up in his throat like that for many years. He felt it now, constricting in his throat—coiled there like an angry viper. He had not felt it at all when he had been by Voldemort’s side. Instead, there had been a surging sort of excitement.

 

“Hey?” Potter’s voice slipped through the rushing sound all around him. “Come in.”

 

A soft pressure at his elbow again, and Snape bent his head and stepped across the threshold. “You have redecorated,” he said.

 

“Yeah of course, I couldn’t stand the horrible furniture and the silverware and all that. Mundungus was happy enough to sell it all off, this time with my permission and a pre-agreed commission.”

 

“I suppose I should not be surprised that you have forgiven the sneak?”

 

“Oh well, it was too hard to hold a grudge against Mundungus. There’d be no use anyway.”

 

“How sanguine you are.” Snape conjured a faint sneer.

 

“Sit down, won’t you? I’ll light a fire and put the kettle on.” This she did so, and the kitchen soon took on a warmer atmosphere.

 

“Where are the Elf heads?” His voice sounded distant to his ears.

 

“I got rid of them, naturally. Even Kreacher was quite happy to part with them. Hermione collected them for some sort of project she’s working on. She still hasn’t given up on S.P.E.W.”

 

Snape had no idea what S.P.E.W. was but he could not bring himself to ask. The viper in his throat had slithered down into his stomach, and it was churning unhappily. He felt that he could not open his mouth lest the nausea overcome him.

 

Potter had noticed that something was wrong. She set the kettle back on the hob with a clang and came to sit beside him at the kitchen table. What a fool he was—he certainly should have made his excuses and extricated himself from Potter’s company. Her green eyes were so bright—he noticed their difference to Lily’s now—the way that they were ringed by black lashes, the way she would squint slightly with one eye and push up her glasses.

 

“Are you alright? You don’t seem—you know—your usual self.”

 

Potter’s head was cocked to one side, revealing the line of her white throat. She was wearing something nicer than she usually wore. Meaning only that she was not wearing a baggy jumper or an old shirt. He realised that he had only noticed this and felt ridiculous for it. There were bright glints of silver in her earlobes—twin jewelled stars.

 

It was easier to focus on her, to observe the minute details of her movements. How strange.

 

Potter was quiet, watching him. She had set down a mug of black tea in front of him.

 

Could she hear the hitch in his breath?

 

“Why don’t you come to the sitting room? No that’s alright. I’m here.”

 

How much time had passed? Snape felt the rapid rise and fall of his chest. He felt as though he were swimming in a fog, only gradually coming to emerge back into some kind of warmth. Potter had moved her chair to sit beside him, her hands wrapped tightly around her teacup. She was seated so close to him that her arm brushed his.

 

“Delphi gets like that sometimes… And me too.” Then she said something unexpected. “We could have been friends. If you’d had friends.”

 

“We would not have been friends. I didn’t have the _right_ sort of friends.”

 

“I’m the right sort of friend then?” she asked with a twinkle worthy of Dumbledore.

 

“Not at all,” he said, “with your reckless endangerment—your hare-brained schemes.”

 

“No,” said Harry, “I would lead you quite astray.” She leaned forward and kissed him softly.

 

This time he returned her advance, lifting his hand to stroke her jaw.

 

“I want to know what you were like,” she said.

 

It did not occur to him this time that she was wanting to hear of Lily.

 

“I’ve told you that I was an angry young man. When I was your age—”

 

Internally, he shuddered. How had Dumbledore dealt with the black miasma of his guilt and grief in all those years? How could he have been allowed to _teach_?

 

So many days he remembered nothing of—as though he was walking blindfolded—until at some moment he would have a sudden flash of despair and yearn for his life to end then and there.

 

It had been the thought of Potter that had sustained him back then. Not _her_ , of course, but the sheer knowledge that some small part of Lily was out there—alive—and needed him. In some small way it was part of him out there—the part of him that was not entirely worthless.

 

Potter had been the symbol of his salvation, even as she had frustrated him, disrespected him as a teacher, and threw him into peril.

 

Now she was kissing him with lips that were dry and chapped. She had come off her dais—the one he had built up in his mind. She was not some distant idol now—no longer the means of his salvation. She was the bratty girl, and the brave, stupid woman who took on a Dark Lord and won.

 

“I would have been honoured to know you,” he said finally.

 

Potter’s face lit up almost comically. “Honoured?” she said, “and what else?”

 

“Did no one tell you how rude it is to fish for compliments?”

 

“No,” she said, “and I like it when you’re not insulting me for a change.”

 

Snape pressed his face against the back of his hand, his elbow set on the kitchen table. He felt something in his chest uncoiling. He felt the warmth of the fire in his body. “Shall I assist you in food preparations?”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


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